Report on Government Services (ROGS) 2024 Data Released

Spending is up but so is demand for housing and services. 

The Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services (ROGS) for the sector — assessing services across social housing, specialist homelessness services, and financial assistance – has been released for 2024.  

The data shows that while government spending has increased in WA on both social housing and homelessness services, investment is being outpaced by demand.   

Social housing 

Real expenditure by the WA Government has increased significantly in the last two years, to $353.5 million in 2022-2023, and this expenditure has led to a real increase of 660 public housing dwellings over the last year. The number of households in social housing has also increased.  

While the boost in social housing investment is significant, it should be noted that it comes off the back of multiple years of underinvestment (Figure 1) where social housing dwelling numbers actually declined. Therefore, despite the new supply coming online, there are still 1142 fewer public housing dwellings across the state now than in 2017.   

The current investment is also being outpaced by demand for social housing, with the social housing waitlist growing by 1425 applications over the two years to September 2023, including a significant increase in priority applicants.  

Figure 1: Table 18A.1 

Homelessness 

Similarly, expenditure on homelessness services in WA has increased in real and per capita terms, however unmet demand for accommodation services continues to grow. In particular, the data shows a growing proportion of clients with unmet need for accommodation (12.5% – up from 11.5% last year and 8.1% in 2019-20). The average number of unassisted requests for all homelessness services has also grown (Figure 2 below). 

Figure 2: Table 19A.8 

Finally, the ROGS data shows the persistent and significant over-presentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people requiring housing assistance and accessing homelessness services. In 2022-23, 50.4% of all homelessness services clients in WA were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander despite making up only 4% of the population. These figures have been worsening over time, not improving, demonstrating an urgent need for more investment in Aboriginal housing and homelessness services that are culturally informed and led.  

The Report on Government Services 2024 report and data tables can be found here.