Australia’s leading social investment organisation Social Ventures Australia (SVA) has welcomed the Commonwealth Government’s commitment to invest in new early intervention services for young parents and carers through the Try, Test, and Learn fund.

Following an announcement on the Government’s approach by the Minister for Social Services Christian Porter, SVA CEO Rob Koczkar said Australia has an unprecedented opportunity to use data and evidence to improve the lives of people in need.

‘Try, Test and Learn will help inform a better understanding of the link between government spending and specific social outcomes, and how much Government could save through investing in effective early intervention programs. It will allow new social initiatives to be tested, measured against agreed outcomes and expanded where they are successful or wound down if they’re not.’

‘The Government will need to spend time working with the community sector to build a common understanding of what kinds of supports are likely to have the greatest impact on the groups identified through the PwC actuarial analysis and how that will be measured.’

‘Data on costs is important, but so is data on social outcomes. Identifying the right outcomes from the data is crucial and the groups affected – like young people, carers, and parents – need to be involved in setting the markers of success.’

‘Government also has a big role to play in sharing existing data on both costs and outcomes, and capturing new data, so that everyone with an interest in social policy can interrogate it for new insights and innovations to support vulnerable groups. We’re pleased that government have indicated a willingness to share data for this purpose and look forward to working with the Government to make the data accessible, available and useful.’