ACMA – CCF meeting Stella Avramopoulos Kildonan UnitingCare 27 November 2013

Action plan - Customer Support Steering Council, water industry Industry Consistency Customer Data Solutions & Products Communications All water utilities should work together to develop a common industry standard for identifying and supporting customers in vulnerable and hardship situations Develop systems to analyse known customer data and identify likely vulnerability and hardship Ensure a wide range of solutions are available to meet the interests and needs of different customer segments Raise awareness of what is available to help customers manage their water bill, who qualifies and how to access it

42% of households are vulnerable to financial hardship 35% of customers had not paid their water bill on time, every time in the past year 58% of customers don’t know what support is available 41% of customers would be too embarrassed to ask for help 48% would appreciate their water company reaching out to offer help Pivotal to this study was a segmentation of the surveyed community to better understand the nature and extent of vulnerability and risk. This resulted in five distinct segments as shown in the adjacent chart. Customer Segmentation

Understanding the nature of vulnerability, community sector GOALS 1. Prevent abuse and neglect 2. Act earlier when children are vulnerable 3. Improve outcomes for children in statutory care There are 647,000 Victorian families with children 130,000 to 195,000 families (20 – 30%) might become vulnerable 54,00 families (8%) known to be vulnerable 10,000 families per annum (1.5%) investigated to assess if children at risk of harm (parents unable to protect) 4,000 families per annum (<1%) where children need protective intervention

Victorian Service Sector Reform (Shergold) -Achieving the best outcomes for clients -A holistic approach -Partnership -Shared governance -Provider choice Principles -Program flexibility -Citizen control -Public accountability -Early intervention -facilitation Recommendation 16 “Making better use of information and communications technology” Standardised data definitions Common database and information and communications technology platform to support integrated service delivery Data shared openly and appropriately between government agencies and contracted providers Users enabled to build online communities of interest

Questions… Where are there common threads across sectors? Where are there opportunities for collaboration and joined up approaches?