The Settlement Council of Australia (SCOA), as the national peak body for Australia’s settlement sector, welcomes the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) performance audit of the Settlement Engagement and Transition Support (SETS) program.
This submission is informed by a sector consultation involving 33 member organisations delivering settlement services across diverse geographic and demographic contexts. It reflects operational realities, lived experience, and system-level insights from organisations responsible for translating SETS funding into outcomes on the ground. Overall, the sector strongly supports the intent and importance of SETS. However, the consultation identified a set of structural misalignments between program design, grant administration, eligibility settings, and real-world settlement practices.
These misalignments have implications for program effectiveness, equity of access, value for money, data integrity, and risk management, particularly in regional and thin-market contexts.