Community aged care providers in a competitive environment: past, present and future

Chapter 6 of the book, Markets, rights and power in Australian social policy, edited by Gabrielle Meagher and Susan Goodwin, and published by Sydney University Press. Marketisation has profoundly affected the supply side of the human services system, both at the level of individual providers and at a systemic level. A key question has been whether an excessive focus by providers on efficiency, growth and profits, rather than on the individual needs of each service user and ensuring the best services and outcome for all users, will arise from the increasing presence of for-profit organisations, the effect of ‘new public management’ on government agencies, the ‘corporatisation’ of many non-profit organisations, the ever-growing presence of large providers, and the pressures on all providers to compete to remain viable. This chapter, by Bob Davidson, examines how these processes have played out in terms of who provides paid community aged care services in Australia, and is thus a case study of how the structure of one human services sector has evolved under marketisation. After giving a brief overview of the current structure (the present), it examines why that structure has emerged (the past) and how it may change (the future). This account points to some distinctive features of community aged care that illustrate important aspects of the impact of marketisation more generally in relation to how and why certain kinds of organisations may become prominent in the provision of human services and the potential implications of this for service users.   Chapters in Markets, rights and power in Australian social policy: Introduction: Capturing marketisation in Australian social policy 1) The politics of market encroachment: policymaker rationales and voter responses 2) The marketisation of human services and the expansion of the not-for-profit sector 3) The devil\u27s in the detail: the hidden costs of private retirement incomes policy 4) Social benefit bonds: financial markets inside the state 5) \u27Which bank?\u27 Competition and community service obligations in the retail banking sector 6) Community aged care providers in a competitive environment: past, present and future 7) Home security: marketisation and the changing face of housing assistance in Australia 8) Money and markets in Australia\u27s healthcare system 9) Marketisation of immigrant skills assessment in Australia 10) Markets in education: \u27School choice\u27 and family capital 11) Conditional income transfers and choice in social services: just more conditions and more markets? &nbsp