CEO ’ S MESSAGE
PATRICIA OCCELLI
This year is a landmark year for Interrelate as it celebrates its 90th year of service to the community . Since our humble beginnings as the Father and Son and then mother and daughter movement , we have continued to work with individuals and families to support the development of healthy relationships and to support the development of new skills and resilience to strengthen relationships .
The collective wisdom and passion of our staff continues to be captured through our staff reference and service practice groups who have achieved many successes in strategic reform , program development , cultural alignment and service access and quality and social corporate responsibility .
These reference groups had many successes including : the endorsement by Reconciliation Australia of the Interrelate Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan . The representation of Interrelate at the Indigenous women ’ s and men ’ s health conference and being recognised as a top 5 finalist for the City Switch awards against organisations such as Bupa and NAB amongst other quite large organisations . These efforts show how our collective efforts can make a significant impact . I would like to thank our staff who contribute to these groups and our executive whose leadership help drive results .
In addition to great results this year we saw another reduction in real government spending into our services by the Commonwealth Government . A freeze to CPI Indexation to the Family Law Services resulted in a net reduction of $ 300,000 to our budget . Costs of service delivery increases each year : this is due to actual expenses in operating and more significantly increase in staffing costs with the Equal Remuneration Order , increases committed through the enterprise agreement and our current commitment to stay 5 % ahead of the award for wages . Despite this , we were able to maintain service to more than 61,000 people in our network of centres and school based programs .
The decision by government to stop the drought funding support in the Central West also saw a reduction in service delivery in those areas . Nonetheless as an organisation , we continue to be committed to doing all that we can to ensure that the communities of Warren , Cobar and Walgett are supported .
Significant efforts undertaken at a Regional and Head Office level to manage our expenditure more effectively has enabled us to retain the level of service delivery across the organisation . These efficiencies have been managed through reduction in expenditure ( telephone , internet , printing , amenities , property costs and staff vacancy based on turn over and replacement of staff ) and increased collection and management of client fees . Staff have all played a significant part in coordinating and enabling these strategies .
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