COAG Indigenous Trials
Shared Responsibility Agreements
What is Shared Responsibility?
Shared responsibility is a partnership between Australian, State/Territory and local governments and indigenous people and their families and communities to bring about change. Businesses, non government and philanthropic organisations can also be engaged as partners.
The partnership is captured through Shared Responsibility Agreements (SRAs). SRAs are agreements between the government and Indigenous communities or groups, to provide a discretionary benefit in return for community obligations. These discretionary benefits may take the form of extra services, capital or infrastructure over and above essential services or basic entitlements.
They can involve all or some of the people in a residential community. They can be developed in remote communities, regional areas or urban areas if Indigenous people locally decide they want to make changes in this way.
The government wants to do business this way because SRAs are driven by community priorities and provide a mechanism to deliver services with much more flexibility to tailor to community needs than has been used in the past.
SRAs are to contribute towards the long term vision and plans that Indigenous people have for their communities, their children and grandchildren. However, this does not mean they have to be complex documents that attempt to address all issues facing a particular community at the one time.
What is in an SRA?
Initially, simple SRAs will be developed, perhaps covering only a single issue. Over time, this will build into a whole–of–community SRA that includes all discretionary spending. Either way SRAs need to have the following key elements:
- one or more priority issues identified locally by Indigenous people (e.g. increased school attendance, healthier kids, stronger governance, Indigenous people able to get into available jobs and including how CDEPs best support community needs);
- government agencies’ commitments to support initiatives to address community priorities;
- a description of the discretionary benefit(s) that will flow to the community;
- an outline of the obligations the community commits to in return.
These are the basic components of an SRA. Once this has been negotiated, regular feedback arrangements need to be agreed between the community and government so that progress can be monitored by both partners to the agreement.
Related Links
- SRA Template (78kb Word document)
- Shared Responsibility, Shared Future is important business for us all Brochure (612kb Word document)
- New Arrangements in Indigenous Affairs Brochure