Vic community health centres discussion paper

A discussion paper looking at options for the governance and accountability of stand alone community health centres in Victoria has been released for comment by 30 June.

Health Minister Daniel Andrews said the review is occurring as a consequence of the Australian Tax Office (ATO) advice that the precedent established by the Federal Court, as applied to the stand alone agencies, meant that they were too tightly regulated to be regarded as public benevolent institutions.

As a result, they would lose Fringe Benefits Tax and other charitable concessions.

Victoria has 100 community health centres operating from 400 sites. Around 60% of them operate in association with, or as part of, hospitals and health services.

The 38 stand alone services which are incorporated under the Associations Incorporation Act are the agencies affected by the discussion paper.

“Our priority is to ensure that the delivery of important services can be maintained, which is why we commenced this review with the intention to make future arrangements consistent with the requirements of the ATO, through legislative change if required,” Mr Andrews said.

“Victoria’s stand alone community health centres received more than $250 million in Victorian government funding in 2007/08, and we need to be able to ensure this money is spent efficiently and on the health and wellbeing of our community.”

The options outlined in the discussion paper enable agencies to:

* Become a non-government agency which can opt-in to become a registered community health centre;
* Become a charitable non-government organisation not registered under the Health Services Act, and therefore not eligible to receive primary and dental services funding; and
* Amalgamate with a public hospital or health service.

Mr Andrews said comments on the discussion paper must be received by 20 June.

Copies of the paper have been delivered to key agencies and stakeholders and it is available from www.dhs.vic.gov.au