Annual Report 2014

Quality and Risk

Quality assurance and risk management are key elements of governance and fundamental to the sustainability of Life Without Barriers. The aim of this work is to: Achieve compliance with standards, legislation and contract requirements

  • Identify ways to continually improve our systems and processes
  • Effectively control the risks faced by the people we support and our business.

Aspects of our quality and risk approach are described below.

Quality Assurance

Life Without Barriers is required to meet stringent accreditation, certification and licensing requirements across multiple jurisdictions. Our service quality framework is comprised of certified and non-certified management systems to provide assurance of service quality, evidence of consistent and reliable outcomes, and continuous quality improvement.

During 2013-14, Life Without Barriers met all requirements to maintain or renew accreditation. Any corrective action identified was quickly remediated to return to good quality service. The notable achievements in 2013-14 listed below are for enhanced quality benchmarks applied by funding agencies.

  • Three year certification in Queensland as a service provider funded by the Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services to operate under the Human Services Quality Framework.
  • Three year accreditation in South Australia under the Quality Improvement Council Standards for Health and Community Care.

We expect to continue to comply with accreditation requirements during the year ahead.

Risk Management

Our risk management framework is designed to control any risks to the goals and objectives of the people we support and our business. Our approach is based on the Risk Management standard (ISO 31000:2009). The framework includes actions for strategic and operational risk management, in order to:

  • Protect the safety and wellbeing of clients and staff.
  • Be creative and innovative.
  • Meet legal and contractual requirements.
  • Optimise outcomes for clients, funding agencies, stakeholders and the community.
  • Protect our reputation and financial viability.
  • Ensure service delivery and business continuity.

During 2013-14, we engaged the Independent Audit Bureau of NSW (IAB) to conduct an independent review of our risk management framework. The review assessed our:

  • Compliance with the Risk Management standard
  • Accuracy and completeness of key risks.
  • Capability and effectiveness of systems and processes for risk management.
  • Suitability of the management strategy for the program of internal audit.
  • The report prepared by IAB outlined 15 recommendations for improvement. By June 30, 13 were completed and two were in progress.

The key areas of improvement were:

  • Full risk reporting on Risk Wizard
  • Key documents approved for Risk Management and Internal Audit
  • Commenced the Internal Audit work plan
  • Implemented the Compliance Checkpoint audit support system
  • Appointed an Audit and Improvement Manager to facilitate and monitor compliance and risk reviews
  • Commenced consolidation of client incident registers
  • Developed an operations reporting framework to oversee performance against agreed indicators.

In the year ahead, LWB intends to continue to refine the risk reporting and review process, and complete the development of a Risk Appetite Statement.

Internal and External Audits

Internal and external audits help to inform our decisions and to align key risk areas with effective controls. The Audit and Improvement Program is comprised of statutory financial and employment related audits, and other routine or reactive reviews – both internal and external.

During 2013-14, we improved our audit capability and processes. We employed staff with specialist skills and implemented specialist audit software, enabling us to improve delivery of routine internal audits to support accreditation and licensing compliance, and monitoring completion of any corrective actions. We also participated in many external audits conducted by funders and other regulatory agencies.

In 2014-15, we intend to refine our reporting for Audit and Improvement activity. The aim is to improve our capacity and capability to deliver an effective risk-based audit program and prioritise business improvement activity.

Continuous Quality Improvement

Our delivery of services is enhanced by a continuous improvement approach. Our management systems enable planning, participation in decision making, positive feedback on performance and a continuous and documented cycle of improvement. The aim is to ensure the best opportunities and outcomes for clients, families and communities and to maximise efficiency.

During 2013-14, we continued to improve our systems to support the delivery of quality services, including for example:

  • Introduction of a report module for our Client Information Recording and Tracking System (CIRTS).
  • Transition to state-of-the-art external data storage and ICT infrastructure support
  • Document management search capability for internal policy and procedure documents
  • Consolidate client incident management system.

In the year ahead, we intend to continue to implement both major and minor improvements, as well as institute more formal committee arrangements to prioritise business improvement activity.

Policy and Procedure

Policy and procedure documents are an integral part of our service delivery, guiding our governance, service provision and interaction with the communities we support. The growth of services delivered by LWB has resulted in a substantial body of knowledge contained in policy and procedure documents.

During 2013-14, we improved our search capability on our document management system. We also continued to streamline existing documents in order to achieve a policy system that delivers timely, convenient, simple-to-follow instructions to managers and staff.

Legislative Framework

We are required to comply with standards, service delivery contracts, and legislative obligations, and our legislative framework assists staff to fulfil legal obligations relevant to their everyday duties.

During 2013-14, we maintained our legal subscription service to receive accurate and timely information about key legislative changes in the areas of: Child protection and client welfare.

  • Privacy and confidentiality.
  • Health, safety and environment.
  • Governance (including fair trading).
  • Industrial relations and human rights.
  • Records management and IT security.
  • Finance and reporting.