Social Development Committee

The Social Development Committee is a select committee of the Queensland Legislative Assembly established by resolution on 23 April 2009 to monitor and report on issues in the policy areas of health, education and training, social welfare services, community development, housing, child safety, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy. 

The Committee also monitors and reports on a number of Commissions including the Commission for Children and Young People and Child Guardian.  With respect to each Commission, the committee has the following functions:

• to monitor and review the performance by the commissioner of the commissioner’s functions
• to report to the Legislative Assembly on any matter concerning the Commissioner, the Commissioner’s functions or the performance of the Commissioner’s functions that the Committee considers should be drawn to the Legislative Assembly’s attention
• to examine the annual report tabled in the Legislative Assembly and, if appropriate, to comment on any aspect of the report, and
• to report to the Legislative Assembly any changes to the functions, structures and procedures of the Commission that the Committee considers desirable for the more effective operation of the Commission or the Act which establishes it.

The Committee has adopted the following processes to fulfil its obligations to monitor, review and report on the Commissions:

• hold two general meetings with the Commissions each year
• time the meetings so that one follows the tabling of the annual reports and the other precedes the estimates process
• ask written questions on notice and require written answers to those questions before the meetings
• meet with the commissions and ask follow up questions without notice, and
• report to Parliament on the proceedings and include in the report the written questions on notice, answers to those questions and a transcript of the meeting.

The Committee comprises seven Members of Parliament, four from the ALP (including the chair), two from the LNP and one Independent.
Prior to each meeting, briefs on a range of topics of interest and responses to questions on notice are obtained from across the Commission by the Strategic Coordination and Reporting team to assist the Commissioner’s preparation for the meeting. 
To date, two formal meetings between the Committee and the Commission have occurred (November 2009 and May 2010) and reports on the Committee’s finding have been tabled in Parliament.  Reports include:

• the Committee’s comments on a wide range of Commission’s functions and performance
• questions on notice and the Commission’s responses
• a transcript of the meeting, and
• answers to questions on notice taken at the meetings.

Within their reports, the Committee also commended the Commission on a number of its initiatives at its meeting in May including:

• the work it is undertaking to promote an understanding of the blue card system in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, particularly in clarifying that having a criminal history does not necessarily prevent a person from holding a blue card and that disqualification depends on the nature and seriousness of the criminal history
• its efforts to recruit and select community visitors with cultural backgrounds and skills that are most appropriate to support the needs of the children and young people they are visiting, particularly those in youth detention centres
• on effectively managing the significant increase in complaints workload it experienced during 2008-09
• sharing its child death information with stakeholders at a state, national and international level
• the fact that 100% of its monitoring and review recommendations were accepted during 2008-09, and
• using information obtained from the 2009 client satisfaction survey (conducted by the Office of Economic and Statistical Research) to refine its communication processes.

The committee was also pleased to report that the Commission substantially met its service standard targets for 2008-09 and, in a number of cases, far exceeded the targets.  The next meeting with the Social Development Committee is Friday November 12. 

Copies of the Social Development Committee reports can be found on the Parliamentary website.

Last Updated: October 26, 2010

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