• AIHW Data Quality Statements, Superseded 05/06/2015
• Indigenous, Standard 05/12/2012

Summary

• All states and territories provide the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) with Indigenous community housing data from their administrative system. The AIHW compiles this data for reporting in the Report on Government Services (RoGS), the COAG Reform Council’s National Affordable Housing Agreement (NAHA) Report and internal publications and bulletins.
• Data is provided in a number of formats. In 2010–11, unit record data was provided by Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. A mix of unit record and aggregate data was provided by New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. In the ACT, administrative data is used for dwelling data items as the sole Indigenous Community Housing Organisation (ICHO) in the ACT did not complete a survey for 2010–11.
• In many cases complete data were not available for all dwellings or ICHOs in the jurisdiction. Therefore, data item totals and performance indicator values may not fully reflect the entire funded portion of the jurisdiction.
• National outputs and indicators were calculated using only those jurisdictions where complete information is available and valid.

Description

Data are provided annually to the AIHW by jurisdictions and are sourced from ICHOs via surveys, the jurisdiction’s administrative systems and dwelling audits conducted by jurisdictions.

The annual data collection captures information about ICHOs, the dwellings they manage and the households assisted at 30 June 2011. Financial information is for the year ending 30 June 2011.

The AIHW is a major national agency set up by the Australian Government under the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Act 1987 (Cwth) to provide reliable, regular and relevant information and statistics on Australia's health and welfare. It is an independent statutory authority established in 1987, governed by a management Board, and accountable to the Australian Parliament through the Health and Ageing portfolio.

The AIHW aims to improve the health and wellbeing of Australians through better health and welfare information and statistics. It collects and reports information on a wide range of topics and issues, ranging from health and welfare expenditure, hospitals, disease and injury, and mental health, to ageing, homelessness, disability and child protection.

The Institute also plays a role in developing and maintaining national metadata standards. This work contributes to improving the quality and consistency of national health and welfare statistics. The Institute works closely with governments and non-government organisations to achieve greater adherence to these standards in administrative data collections to promote national consistency and comparability of data and reporting.

One of the main functions of the AIHW is to work with the states and territories to improve the quality of administrative data and, where possible, to compile national datasets based on data from each jurisdiction, to analyse these datasets and disseminate information and statistics.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Act 1987, in conjunction with compliance to the Privacy Act 1988, (Cth) ensures that the data collections managed by the AIHW are kept securely and under the strictest conditions with respect to privacy and confidentiality.

For further information see the AIHW website www.aihw.gov.au.

Data are collected and published annually. The reference period for this collection is the 2010–11 financial year and is mostly a 30 June 2011 snapshot, but also captures 2010–11 household activity. The most recent data available are for 2010–11.

Specific State/Territory issues:

South Australia

All dwelling and household data is based on tenancy and asset audits conducted in 2008 and 2009 with updates performed on some communities.

Tasmania

Data includes 6 new constructions awaiting handover.

Australian Capital Territory

Administrative data is used for dwelling data items as the sole ICHO in the ACT did not complete a survey for 2010–11.

Data were due to be submitted to the AIHW on 21 October 2011. NSW, Victoria and the NT did not make this deadline, while the other five jurisdictions were on time with their data submissions. The AIHW had received data from all jurisdictions by 10 November 2011. Finalised data was signed off by jurisdictions and made available for publishing on 3 February 2012.

Annual data is reported in Housing Assistance in Australia (this publication), the 2012 RoGS http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/114975/59-government-services-2012-chapter16.pdf and the COAG Reform Council’s NAHA Report http://www.coagreformcouncil.gov.au/reports/housing.cfm. 

Users can request additional disaggregations of data, which is not available online or in reports, subject to jurisdiction approval, via the Housing Unit, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare on (02) 6244 1000 or via email to [email protected]. Requests that take longer than half an hour to compile are charged for on a cost-recovery basis. General enquiries about AIHW publications can be made to the Communications, Media and Marketing Unit on (02) 6244 1032 or via email to [email protected].

Metadata and definitions relating to this data source can be found in the National Housing Assistance Data Dictionary (AIHW Cat no. HOU147) /content/index.phtml/itemId/181162.  

Supplementary information can be found in the housing collection data manuals which are available upon request from the AIHW.

ICH for the purposes of this collection includes all dwellings targeted to Indigenous people that are managed by an ICHO. ICHOs include community organisations such as resource agencies and land councils, which may have a range of functions, provided that they manage housing for Indigenous people. All data items except D1b and D19b exclude dwellings managed by unfunded organisations. For NSW this means excluding ICHOs that are not actively registered.

The data are highly relevant for monitoring trends in the number of Indigenous households assisted in ICH. The data are used for many purposes, including by policy-makers to evaluate the living conditions of tenants in ICH dwellings and assessing the viability of ICHOs.

There are known issues with the accuracy of data collected:

• Care should be used in comparing data across jurisdictions due to variation in scope and/or definitions between administrative systems. This reflects the variation in how ICH operates across jurisdictions.
• Jurisdictions may use more than one source of data which may affect data quality.
• In 2010–11, unit record data was provided by Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. A mix of unit record and aggregate data was provided by New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Administrative data is used for dwelling data items as the sole ICHO in the ACT did not complete a survey for 2010–11.
• In many cases complete data were not available for all dwellings or ICHOs in the jurisdiction. Therefore, data item totals and performance indicator values may not fully reflect the entire funded portion of the jurisdiction.
• Performance indicators, reported as proportions have been adjusted for non-response by excluding unknowns/ non-responders from the denominator. The national performance indicators, reported as proportions, were calculated using data from only those jurisdictions where both numerator and denominator were available and valid.

Specific State/Territory issues:

New South Wales

The ICH sector collects data from Aboriginal Community Housing Providers (ACHPs) that are actively registered with the Aboriginal Housing Office (AHO), rather than by their funding status. For the purposes of this collection, active registration is used as a proxy for funding, but it should be noted that active registration does not guarantee funding.

The data provided is for permanent dwellings managed by ACHPs that are registered with AHO and provided data as at June 2011. It does not include data on permanent dwellings managed by ACHPs that did not provide data as at June 2011.

Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia

The 2010–11 ICH data collection includes dwellings in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia that are owned by Indigenous communities, but have transferred responsibility for tenancy management to the state housing authority.

Northern Territory

ICH dwellings are managed by ICHOs located in very remote parts of the Northern Territory. These ICHOs provide tenancy and maintenance services to not only dwellings in the community in which they are located but also to outlying communities and outstations. Some of these are inaccessible for parts of the year (mainly during the wet season) and others consist only of a handful of dwellings.

The Northern Territory relies on the information collected by the ICHOs and there is a shared understanding that it is not always possible for the ICHO to have current information on these locations, due to distance and access issues.

For 2010–11, no data is collected on these outstation dwellings. 

Data within jurisdictions may not be comparable to previous years due to variation in the response rate to the survey for which jurisdictions can provide data.

For reasons of data quality and availability, the scope of the ICH collection was restricted in 2009–10 to include only funded organisations (that is, ICHOs that received funding in the reported financial year). Since 2009–10, only ICHO and dwelling numbers are reported for unfunded organisations (that is, ICHOs that received funding in previous financial years but not in the reported financial year).

From 2009–10, the scope of the ICH collection is consistent with the scope of the 2006–07 and earlier collections. In comparison, the 2008–09 and 2007–08 collections included unfunded ICHOs.

Previously, the Australian Government had administrative responsibility for some ICHOs in Victoria, Queensland and all ICHOs in Tasmania. Data for these dwellings were reported collectively under the jurisdiction ‘Australian Government’. In 2009, responsibility for these ICHOs was transferred to the respective jurisdiction, and data for these dwellings are now reported under the relevant state or territory.

Specific State/Territory issues:

Victoria

For the two years prior to 2009–10, Victoria reported against one agency (Aboriginal Housing Victoria) for ICH. From 2009–10, Victoria is reporting on an additional 18 agencies since assuming administrative responsibility for the former Community Housing and Infrastructure Program (CHIP), previously managed by the Australian Government. Due to this change Victorian data is not comparable with previous years.

Queensland

The dwelling numbers for unfunded organisations was provided by the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) in 2008 and has not been verified by FaHCSIA as being correct. Permanent dwellings in unfunded organisations are therefore not included.

The number of unfunded organisations was provided by FaHCSIA in 2008 and has not been verified by FaHCSIA as being correct. The number of unfunded organisations is therefore not included.

Data from the 2010–11 ICH collection is comparable to other relevant data sources such as the ABS Community Housing and Infrastructure Needs Surveyhttp://abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/ProductsbyReleaseDate76555316489F7D5BCA2572
EB0082B5C5?OpenDocument and National and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/mf/4714.0/.