National Affordability Housing Agreement: General Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) 2011 QS
Data Quality Statement Attributes
Identifying and definitional attributes | |
Metadata item type: | Data Quality Statement |
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METEOR identifier: | 439868 |
Registration status: | Homelessness, Recorded 05/10/2011 Housing assistance, Recorded 05/10/2011 |
Data quality | |
Data quality statement summary: | The key data quality issue related to the use of SAAP (Supported Accommodation Assistance Program) data is relevance. SAAP data does not capture the whole of the homeless (and at risk) population, rather only people who access SAAP services. |
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Institutional environment: | The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has had the role of the SAAP NDCA since the collection’s inception in 1996-97. The AIHW works closely with all state, territory and Australian Government authorities in collecting, analysing and disseminating data. However, the Institute is an independent statutory authority within the Health and Ageing portfolio, and is responsible to the Minister for Health and Ageing. The Institute is governed by a Board, which is accountable to the parliament of Australia through the Minister. When errors are found in published data, those errors are corrected immediately in publications on the AIHW website, and where necessary, in on-line tables and online interactive data cubes. Corrections are documented on the AIHW website. There are various mechanisms in place that provide the framework for the implementation and governance of SAAP and the NDCA. These mechanisms include the SAAP Act (1994) and the Multilateral and Bilateral Agreements which set out accountability arrangements, management structures, and funding allocations. As part of the Australian Government’s National Reform Agenda, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) replaced SAAP with the new National Affordable Housing Agreement (NAHA), effective from 1 January 2009. Agencies that participated in the 2008-09 Client Collection were funded under the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) from 1 July 2008 to 31 December 2008, and then under the National Affordable Housing Agreement (NAHA) from 1 January 2009. |
Timeliness: | The reporting period for each of the proxy indicators and outputs is a financial year. SAAP data has been recorded on a continuous basis and published annually since 1996. The most recent reference period for the data is 2008–09. The data for the 2008-09 financial year was first published in: AIHW (2010) Government-funded specialist homelessness services: SAAP National Data Collection annual report 2008-09. Cat. No. HOU 291. Canberra: AIHW. The SAAP NDC annual reports are published between 6 to 9 months after the end of the reference period. |
Accessibility: | Related data to those shown in the proxy indicator tables are available publicly in the SAAP annual reports released by AIHW. Not all disaggregations, including those shown in these performance indicator tables, are published directly but may be requested, subject to jurisdiction approval. AIHW 2010. Government-funded specialist homelessness services: SAAP National Data Collection annual report 2008-09. Cat. No. HOU 291. Canberra: AIHW. AIHW 2009. Homeless people in SAAP: SAAP National Data Collection annual report. SAAP NDC report series 13. Cat. no. HOU 191. Canberra: AIHW. |
Interpretability: | Further information on the adjustment scheme, legislation and the SAAP collection can be found in: 1. AIHW 2010. Government-funded specialist homelessness services: SAAP National Data Collection annual report 2008-09. Cat. No. HOU 291. Canberra: AIHW. 2. AIHW 2005. SAAP National Data Collection collector’s manual July 2005. Canberra: AIHW. 3. Karmel R 1999. SAAP National Data Collection: adjustment methods for incomplete coverage. Canberra: AIHW. 4. Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, Supported Accommodation Assistance Act 1994, Act No. 162 of 1994, Canberra. 5. National Affordable Agreement on Homelessness http://www.coag.gov.au/intergov_agreements/federal_financial_relations/ |
Relevance: | SAAP data does not cover all homeless people and those at risk of homelessness, but only those that are supported at a SAAP agency. Homeless people (and those at risk) who do not receive support from SAAP agencies are not in scope for proxy indicators compiled solely from SAAP data. A SAAP client is a person who is homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness who: An accompanying child is a person aged under 18 years who: A SAAP support period commences when a client begins to receive support and/or supported accommodation from a SAAP agency. The support period is considered to finish when: The SAAP definition of homelessness used in these proxy indicators comes from the SAAP Act 1994 and is consistent with publications such as the Government-funded specialist homelessness services: SAAP National Data Collection annual report 2008-09. Cat. No. HOU 291. Canberra: AIHW. Under SAAP, people are considered homeless when they do not have access to safe and secure housing. This definition of homelessness can be considered broader in scope than the cultural definition of homelessness (Chamberlain and MacKenzie, Counting the Homeless 2006) used in NAHA Indicator 3 (Proportion of Australians who are homeless) as the cultural definitions only covers people who do not have access to housing above or equal to the minimum community standard of a small rental flat with a bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom and some security of tenure. The financial year was chosen as a standard time frame for the proxy indicator as this is in line with the SAAP reporting period. |
Accuracy: | An adjustment has been made to account for client non-consent and agency non-participation. In 2008–09 the SAAP Client Collection achieved an agency participation rate of 94% and valid consent rates of 85% for clients and 73% for accompanying children. As data is not obtained from all SAAP clients an adjustment is required to ensure that the estimates reflect the entire SAAP client population. The adjustment scheme assumes that, on average, the demographic characteristics and circumstances of people are the same regardless of whether data about them were reported to the NDCA. In this way, adjustments can be made to account for clients who do not give consent. The scheme adjusts estimates to allow for agency non-participation (if this occurs), for clients who give valid consent for some support periods but not for others (referred to as ‘mixed consent’), and for clients who do not give consent in any of their periods of support. There is no strictly objective method that can be applied to the data from the Client Collection to adjust estimates for incomplete response. Karmel (1999:23, 26) describes the statistical assumptions underlying the adjustment scheme developed by the AIHW. Note that the adjustment scheme does not account for inaccuracies associated with the use of the statistical linkage key. Statistical linkage keys allow data collected on separate occasions from the same person to be combined without identifying the person. Thus they allow enumeration of actual clients and accompanying children in addition to occasions of support. There are a small number of inaccuracies caused by identical statistical linkage keys and changing linkage key information for the same client. Inconsistent reporting of indigenous status by clients has been adjusted for by using the indigenous status of the first valid (i.e. non-missing and consenting) response provided by the client. As different periods of homelessness can occur in different states, a similar option was chosen for determining the state of the client. The state of the client is determined to be the state of the SAAP agency where the client first presented within the financial year. For confidentiality reasons, numerators with small cell sizes (those less than 5 and the next smallest cell) and corresponding proportions will not be reported. |
Coherence: | NAHA Indictor 4 and NAHA Outputs A and B have been produced using the same data source: SAAP National Data Collection (NDC) - Client Collection. SAAP data used to compile proxy indicators and outputs for 2008-09 have been affected by changes in funding arrangements. As described above, on the 1st January 2009 SAAP V was replaced by the NAHA. The development and implementation of new services under the revised arrangements have been ongoing. It is not possible to quantify the extent to which services changed or new services were added in the first 6 months of the operation of the NAHA, although it is known that these were not extensive. The majority of existing services under SAAP continued. For more information about the NAHA see AIHW 2010. Government-funded specialist homelessness services: SAAP National Data Collection annual report 2008-09. Cat. No. HOU 291. Canberra: AIHW. |
Source and reference attributes | |
Submitting organisation: | Australian Institute of Health and Welfare |
Steward: | Housing and Homelessness Information Management Group |
Reference documents: | AIHW 2010. Government-funded specialist homelessness services: SAAP National Data Collection annual report 2008-09. Cat. No. HOU 291. Canberra: AIHW. |
Relational attributes | |
Data sources linked to this Data quality statement: |