Department of Communities Tasmania dashboard update

Roger Jaensch, Minister for Housing, Human Services, Disability Services and Community Development

The latest Communities Tasmania dashboard for the September 2019 quarter released today shows significant improvements in a number of areas.

The number of applicants on the Social Housing Register increased by 114 across the quarter, but the average time for housing priority applicants has dropped from 67 to 61 weeks and the number of households assisted through Private Rental Assistance increased from 155 in June to 196 in September.

The Hodgman majority Liberal Government is acting to address continuing housing market pressure by investing over $80 million in the 2019-20 financial year to increase the supply of social and affordable housing under our $258 million Affordable Housing Strategy, boosted by our ground breaking agreement with the Commonwealth Government to waive Tasmania’s housing debt.

In Child Safety Services, the number of children referred for investigation was reported as 35 for September which is less than half of the 12-month average of 72, with the number of children in active transition decreasing from 92 in the June quarter to 43 at the end of September.

These improvements reflect the impacts of the important child safety system redesign introduced by our government, which focuses on supporting families to stay together where it is safe to do so.

As a result of the transition to the NDIS last year the Department no longer collects data for the disability indicators, as access to specialist disability services is provided via the NDIS.

The Hodgman majority Liberal Government has a long term strategy to assist Tasmanians in need and will continue to work hard to improve important community supports.

The dashboard can be viewed at https://www.dhhs.tas.gov.au/humanservicesstats/human_services_dashboard

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