3 Improving public housing
This Part of the report assesses ongoing work to improve public housing in Victoria, which has occurred primarily through:
2 Progress and challenges
This Part of the report examines the key challenges to public housing in Victoria leading up to the March 2017 release of the housing affordability strategy Homes for Victorians. In doing this, we have followed up on related recommendations from our 2012 audit Access to Public Housing.
Figure 2A shows the three recommendations in our 2012 audit that focused on addressing system-level challenges for public housing.
Figure 2A
Recommendations from our 2012 audit relating to system-level challenges for public housing
1 Audit context
Housing is important for all Victorians. Without access to affordable and secure housing, people face an increased risk of homelessness, mental illness and inability to meet living costs. Social housing is an important means of helping those in greatest need. Government, non-government and not-for-profit organisations provide social housing to people who are unable to access suitable accommodation in the private market. Figure 1A shows the types of social housing provided in Victoria.
Figure 1A
Social housing options
Audit overview
Access to affordable and secure housing reduces the risk of homelessness and improves people's capacity to meet living costs. It can also be beneficial in addressing issues such as mental illness.
Government and non-government not-for-profit organisations provide social housing to people who are unable to access suitable accommodation in the private market.
Social housing is an umbrella term for two different types of housing:
Managing Victoria’s Public Housing: Message
Ordered to be published
VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT PRINTER June 2017
PP No 254, Session 2014–17
Managing Victoria’s Public Housing
Body
In this audit, we examined whether the development of the whole-of-Victorian Government housing strategy, as it relates to public housing, is supported by sound advice, and whether the Department of Health and Human Services is managing public housing effectively.
Appendix C. Survey of boards
The survey we conducted as part of this audit was designed to gather information on governance practices and obtain feedback on the effectiveness of guidance issued by the Victorian Public Sector Commission (VPSC), the Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC) and portfolio departments.
This appendix presents our methodology and the results of the survey.
Survey methodology
Selection of participant entities
There are about 3 400 Victorian public sector entities with boards.
Appendix B. Better practice in board governance
During the conduct of this audit, we reviewed better practice guidance and frameworks to identify core principles in good board governance:
Appendix A.Audit Act 1994 section 16—submissions and comments
Introduction
We have professionally engaged with portfolio departments, the boards in the case studies (from Box Hill Institute and Centre for Adult Education, CenITex, Fed Square Pty Ltd and Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute), the Department of Premier and Cabinet and the Victorian Public Sector Commission throughout the course of the audit. In accordance with section 16(3) of the Audit Act 1994 we provided a copy of this report or relevant extracts to those agencies, and requested their submissions and comments.
3 Board governance practices
Under the Public Administration Act 2004 (PAA), a public sector board is responsible for: