While there has been consideration by Australian policy makers and academics of overseas initiatives in welfare reform, there has been relatively little discussion of how those reform processes are being carried out with Indigenous groups. This concluding section briefly describes an important initiative in welfare delivery being made with Native American people—US Federal government’s progressive move towards the devolution of service delivery jurisdictions to Native American tribes.
In October 2000, the US media reported the signing by the Navajo Tribe of a proclamation establishing the largest Indian-operated reformed welfare program in the country. With the US Department of Health and Human Services supplying US$31.2 million and another US$1 million from the State of New Mexico for office construction, the Federal government and the State governments of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah will turn over to the Navajo the various welfare payments and service delivery system known as the TANF Program. The State governments will keep operating from their current offices for six months while the Navajo Tribe hires and trains staff and sets up offices to deliver the TANF program to an estimated 27 000 Navajo people.
The Navajo TANF program is just the latest of 30 tribal-run welfare programs encompassing 155 tribes that have been set up since 1996, when President Clinton signed the welfare reform law known as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. Thus, in the process of implementing reforms which look very much like those now being considered in Australia, the US Federal government has also been progressively handing over service delivery jurisdictions to Indian tribes.
Passed with bipartisan support, the legislation established a comprehensive welfare reform program that was designed to move welfare recipients into work, replaced existing national welfare programs with TANF, and enabled not only State governments, but federally recognised Indian tribes and consortia of tribes, to apply for block federal funding to directly operate their own TANF programs.
The legislation gives approved tribes the authority to use Federal government welfare funds in any manner that is reasonably calculated to accomplish the purposes of its welfare agenda. The Federal government redirects to the tribe an amount equal to that which would have been provided to the State for welfare services to all Indian families residing in the proposed service area. Tribes can administer the program themselves, or outsource program delivery to the State or to a private provider.
Federal approval is based on a tribe’s submission of a Tribal TANF Plan covering a three to four year period which identifies its service area and population; sets out its welfare policies, guidelines and penalty regimes, and the welfare services and programs to be provided; and provides an economic development plan to enhance access to local employment opportunities. A Tribal TANF Plan must obtain Federal government approval. To qualify, a tribe must have a governing body to administer the program, and a mandate from their constituents. Importantly, implementation of the program is subject to statutory national regulations, and the same data collection and reporting requirements as State government programs.
There are important areas of flexibility for tribes in the formulation of TANF policies and guidelines, including the capacity to:
determine programs and eligibility criteria;
decide what social security benefits are appropriate for their population;
define participation and work requirements, and work standards that must be met in order to receive benefits;
establish timeframes for the receipt of benefits;
define work as including culturally relevant work, job search, subsidised employment, community service, vocational training and education; and
define their own concept of ‘family’ and ‘needy family’.
Tribal TANF programs also have regulated flexibility to provide ‘assistance’ in a variety of forms including cash payments, vouchers (e.g. for food), clothing, shelter, utilities, household goods, personal care items, child care, and transportation to work. Native American people participating in a TANF program for at least two years are required, under regulations, to participate in work activities. If the service population has more than 50 per cent unemployment, federally established welfare time limits need not apply.