Young adults attending the Myuma pre-vocational training course at Camooweal being directed by Alyawarr Elder Muscly Tommy (seated on the right) in the cladding of a traditional desert shelter with spinifex grass. The process helps strengthen the cultural identity of trainees in the workplace. It illustrates the role of key individuals in fostering effective involvement in services from within a community (photo by Paul Memmott, 2008).

Principles of effective service delivery for remote desert communities

Extensive field work

The research conducted through the project Desert Services that Work is producing knowledge and insights on improving access to services. Researchers have spent a lot of time working with community members and observing the many facets of service design, planning, and use. Community-based Aboriginal researchers have undertaken data collection in some locations.

Listening and learning

We have learned from listening to service providers in the government and private sectors, as well as participating in processes led by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), making submissions to the review of the Northern Territory Emergency Response and observing local government reform. We are developing a typology of service models and comparing the performance of different methods of providing services.

Emerging principles of effective service delivery

The research contributes to the goal of sustainable remote desert settlements that support the presence of desert people through improved access to services. Research to date has produced a set of principles presented below and which are subject to further development as we proceed through the next phase of work.

Principle 1: Quality and adequacy of supply

Whether for telephones, rubbish collection or the maintenance of water bores, service providers set out to deliver a high quality service that meets the needs of users. There are many reasons why services often fall short of these aims. They include:

• the challenges of recruiting and retaining suitable staff

• the physical demands of the desert environment on equipment and materials

• difficulties in communication

• poor knowledge and information.

A critical principle of service delivery is that the quality of the service meets a standard that is appropriate for the local context and that the supply is adequate for local needs.

Principle 2: Supply of service is adaptable to local conditions affecting demand

It may be cost-effective for service providers to deliver standardised services, but often local circumstances call for a more adaptable and flexible approach. For example, where people are committed to living in a certain place and accept that its natural resources may be limited, then for providers to insist on urban water or energy standards may ultimately lead to unsustainable costs of living for remote area residents. This principle calls for an informed understanding of the aspirations of local people and responsiveness to local conditions.

Principle 3: Clear decision points

It is a simplification to argue that more localised decision-making produces better results. After all, local people may not have the specialised knowledge and skills to make decisions. But there is plenty of evidence from our research in the Northern Territory and Western Australia in particular, that local organisations charged with service delivery often find themselves at the sharp end of a local supply chain over which they have little influence. When policy changes centrally (meaning at State, Territory, or Federal level), so local staff interpret and explain the changes to their customers. Some agency staff have described themselves as experiencing waves of reform to the way in which services are organised and funded. So the principle here is about service systems incorporating well-defined decision points that are relevant for the kind of service being planned. For example, the location of a payphone may be an important decision in which local people need to be involved, but the actual decisions around the technical functioning of that service is a central matter. By contrast, the development of a ranger service will require a high level of local discussion and decision points mapped out in advance.

Principle 4: Involvement of trusted outsiders and insiders

Where services are provided in the dominant language and with a heavy sprinkling of acronyms, technical jargon and official terms, desert dwellers often rely on outsiders to help interpret what is going on. As we have seen through research in Martu country in Western Australia and in Western Queensland, local organisations can help to bridge the gap (or span the boundary) between service providers and Aboriginal people. This also applies to insiders too. In the case of the PY Ku Remote Transaction Centre Program, the employment of local Anangu people as staff has encouraged use of the service and enabled users to count on support from people who understand their perspective and their priorities.

Principle 5: Quality of interpersonal relationships across a service network

Relationships are important, in small desert communities. Time is needed to build rapport and understanding between people. It is no coincidence that services perceived to be effective are often those in which people with an ability to anticipate local concerns, manage misunderstandings and to communicate clearly are found. The quality of the service becomes person-dependent rather than system-dependent. Too often, the service system itself does not properly provide for good practice that is less reliant on effective individuals. Fostering good relationships and putting the resources into maintaining them is shown to be critical in the locations in which the Desert Services that Work project is undertaking research.

Principle 6: Form of engagement between service providers and users is determined by function

The term engagement is used here to describe the way in which providers and users of services, communicate, negotiate and cooperate to ensure best outcomes. Our research in different locations in desert Australia is producing insights on the form of engagement in different situations and the influences on it. In some cases, there is almost no engagement and the reasons often come down to an absence of representation of local people in governance arrangements relating to services. We have observed this problem in communities where Martu people live in Western Australia. In other settings, engagement is inconsistent due to the high mobility of local people and the changing staff within service providers. Or efforts to resolve a service issue, such as access to good water in Dajarra, Western Queensland, have involved much discussion but little tangible change. We are observing that different forms of engagement suit different situations. Effective engagement is determined by the scope and nature of services. In examples such as housing maintenance, ongoing negotiation with residents about the maintenance regime is appropriate. In others, such as access to energy services, long-term agreements may be more suitable to local circumstances.

Effective community engagement can take many forms. Here Colin Saltmere of Dugalunji Aboriginal Corporation at Camooweal is running a cultural induction workshop for a minerals exploration and drilling team using stone tool manufacturing materials (Photo by Paul Memmott, 2008).

Principle 7: Stability in the policy environment

Users of services become accustomed to their services and the way they are delivered. So when the system changes, people have to get used to new arrangements and how to gain the most benefit from them. Efficiency is often lost and the faith of service users becomes stretched, especially when the reasons for the change are determined centrally and not apparent to them. The research team examined aspects of policy stability in its work at Ali Curung, where the reform of local government and the effects of the Northern Territory Emergency Response have led to a rapidly-changing policy environment. The closure of the Law and Justice Program, which was widely-perceived to be an effective service with strong community commitment behind it, is a good example of central policy change undermining confidence in services locally. Conversely, the presence of mature local organisations and a low turnover of staff in key positions, has enabled transitions from one policy to another to be managed effectively in other locations in which researchers are working, a signal of policy stability being overcome through local responses.

Principle 8: Service match to local needs and capacity

The research carried out under the project Desert Services that Work is concerned with supporting services that are ‘demand-responsive’. Demand-responsive services ensure that the capacity of a remote community to use a service for their particular needs is central to planning and investment.

Research by the DKCRC on the Ngaanyatjarra Lands and in Western Queensland is starting to show how a long-term vision for a settlement and the region within which it is located enables the supply chain of services to be better designed and orientated to goals to which residents themselves make a commitment. In this context, a key principle is that service development and implementation views both sides of the supply-demand equation and avoids the pitfall of focussing only on better delivery of services as opposed to improved access to services for locally-determined objectives.