Priority investment approach research DSS

Identifying and definitional attributes

• Commonwealth Department of Social Services (retired), Standard 20/06/2018

The Priority Investment Approach (PIA) researchdata set specification (DSS) defines longitudinal social security information related to Centrelink recipients and their partners. The information defined includes information related to entitlements to benefits, payment information and demographic details (for example, sex, Indigenous status, refugee status and date of birth).​

A Centrelink recipient is a person to whom an Australian Government Centrelink benefit is provided.

A person is considered to be a recipient's partner if the person and recipient live together, or usually live together, and are: married, or in a registered relationship (opposite-sex or same-sex), or in a de facto relationship (opposite-sex or same-sex).

The data set does not include information relating to the Child Care Benefit (CCB) or Child Care Rebate (CCR).

Collection and usage attributes

The PIA research DSS allows for analysis of Centrelink benefits for recipients from 2001 to 2015. The variables cover the transition between activity testing (ongoing reporting requirement) and manifest benefit types (granted without the need for further assessment), including other benefit types such as the sources of eligibility.

Administrative data within the PIA research DSS have been collected for the purpose of recording service delivery activities, to account for the expenditure of government revenue in the form of payments and services.

Demographic data within the PIA research DSS have been collected as administrative data items that are related to the eligibility rules for a specific benefit. The existence of demographic data for all benefit types and periods of time is limited to the benefit described in the data set.

Recipients may continue to be eligible for benefits due to grandfathering provisions of relevant legislation.

Centrelink recipients are classified by the benefit type they received at the end of each quarter, that is, they may have been in receipt of other benefit types earlier in the quarter but are recorded against the latest benefit type for reporting purposes.

This data set has been reconciled against other Department of Social Services' data sets drawn from the same data and is fit for research purposes.

Data for the PIA research DSS are collected from Department of Human Services (DHS) forms and online data systems and stored in the DHS Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) for analysis and reporting.

The EDW collects data for a two-week period. Some variables use the last two-week period or an aggregate of the three month period as the basis for their values.

The Australian Priority Investment Approach Longitudinal Income Support Administrative Dataset defines longitudinal social security data from the DHS EDW.

The investment approach to welfare supports the work done to implement the recommendations of the review of Australia's welfare system - the McClure Review. Data about the triggers that affect a person's transitions through the social support system have been collected in the form of the PIA research DSS.

The underlying criteria for this data set is subject to legislative review over the period of this data collection.

Source and reference attributes

Australian Government Department of Social Services

Department of Human Services 2016. A guide to Australian Government payments 1 July–19 September 2016. Viewed 19 July 2016, https://www.humanservices.gov.au/sites/default/files/co029-1607en.pdf.