This audit would examine the effectiveness of the National Disability Insurance Agency’s development and implementation of the new approach to the Early Childhood Early Intervention (ECEI) program.

The ECEI program was developed in 2016 as the first national approach to children under seven years of age with developmental delay and disability. The Early Childhood Early Intervention Implementation Reset was conducted in 2020–21 to review the approach. Some of the proposed changes included increasing the age group to under nine years, a distinct ECEI model differentiated from the general National Disability Insurance Scheme, enhancing the early supports offered, and planning and implementation more clearly based on best practice supports. The new early childhood approach was to be implemented over a 24-month period from July 2021.

This audit would review the progress of the Digital Identity system’s implementation, design and functionality, including the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders and the allocation and expenditure of funding, including contract management.

The Digital Identity program is led by the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) and is made up of the Trusted Digital Identity Framework, the identity exchange (run by Services Australia), digital identity providers (currently myGovID managed by the Australian Taxation Office) and over 75 services currently connected to the system.

The audit would assess the effectiveness of National Indigenous Australians Agency’s (NIAA’s) design and piloting of the Remote Engagement Program (REP).

The Australian Government introduced the Community Development Program (CDP) in July 2015 to assist jobseekers in remote Australia. In a 2017, a Senate Inquiry concluded that the CDP should not continue in its current form and recommended that the government engage in ‘genuine and comprehensive consultation with remote communities, Indigenous organisations, employment providers and other stakeholders on the reforms required to be made to the CDP’. The government subsequently announced a suite of reforms to the CDP in the 2018-19 Budget. In May 2021 the government announced that a new program, the REP, would be rolled out in 2023 to replace the CDP.

The REP aims to provide employment pathways and economic opportunities for participants in remote communities. It is to be co-designed and trialled with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and remote communities before the program is rolled out in 2024. This co-design process aims to be consistent with the Priority Reform One of the Closing the Gap Reform Agreement, Formal partnerships and shared decision making.

The National Indigenous Australians Agency, as the entity responsible for the development of the REP, has selected five regions to conduct the trials from 2022, and estimates that around 200 eligible job seekers across the pilot sites will volunteer to participate in the trials.