As we analysed the responses of the various people involved with CDEPs, four broad indicators emerged as significant in the sourcing of training. First, there was a clear relationship between location and access to adequate training. Programs in capital cities have a range of training providers at their disposal. Programs in rural areas, on the other hand, have far fewer choices, while programs in remote areas sometimes found it nearly impossible to obtain training of the nature they required. However, the urban-rural-remote differentiation is not so neatly predictive of a CDEP's ability to obtain training. While there may be more options for the provision of training available in urban areas, there is also greater competition for training places, access to training dollars, and employment placements.
There appears to be a 'critical mass' in terms of program size that correlates with the ability to secure appropriate and recurrent training. Large CDEP programs have larger budgets from which it is possible to draw funds to purchase training, while a small program with few participants has little if any fiscal flexibility. Once a program attains a critical mass, staff numbers grow and staff time may be allocated to develop applications for funded training, or, in some cases, to undertake the extensive and time-consuming process involved in qualifying the CDEP as a Registered Training Organisation (RTO), able to deliver its own training.
Other significant factors are the individual skills and knowledge of CDEP managers. 'Learning the ropes' takes time and it is clear from our research that experienced managers are better able to negotiate the difficult terrain of securing training than are new managers unfamiliar with the various policies, rules, and procedures. Similarly, securing training can require perseverance, determination and patience that not every CDEP manager or staff member is fortunate to possess or able to sustain. In some cases, individual personality and knowledge of agency networks appears to be a key factor in finding the means to provide the desired training.
Finally, community aspirations play a part. These are hard to measure, but are nonetheless a very real factor. If a community has clear and realistic goals and desires, and if the CDEP program is part of a larger community strategy, it appears easier to locate, obtain or create opportunities for training that can in turn facilitate the attainment of those goals.
Conversations with those CDEP people involved in the articulation between vocational education and training and employment opportunities raised a number of issues. Many of these pointed to shared difficulties experienced by a diverse range of CDEPs, and others reflected unique local circumstances. However, all fell broadly within four areas of concern: socio-economic disadvantage, relevance of training, resources, and access. In what follows, these four problem areas provide the basis from which to examine a range of pertinent key issues. In order to respect the anonymity of the CDEPs in the survey, the illustrative material used to highlight those issues that are of major concern to the respondents will not be attributed to individual CDEPs.
The socio-economic disadvantage experienced by Indigenous Australians in relation to the wider Australian population can hardly be disputed. In the context of CDEPs and their ability to provide training opportunities, this disadvantage is implicated in nearly every attempt to incorporate training into CDEP programs. Indeed, the policy discourse from which CDEPs arose was based in part upon a recognition of the socio-economic disadvantage of Indigenous Australians, particularly those living in remote locations (Altman & Sanders 1991; Altman & Smith 1993; Sanders 1988).
A prevailing message recurring in all interviews, regardless of any other indicators, was the continuing low level of skills that are transferrable to 'mainstream' training and employment opportunities. Although CDEP participants in some communities may have considerable skills in looking after country, maintaining cultural continuity and managing family connections, these do not lead to recognisable skills outside an Indigenous cultural context.
Low levels of numeracy and English literacy are a significant impediment to commencing training, regardless of whether it leads to employment. Generally, the most basic expectation for competency in both non-accredited and accredited training is that students are able to read and write, and that they have the ability to perform basic numeracy tasks. The relatively low rates of numeracy and competence in English literacy among Indigenous Australians have implications for the cost of training, and significantly affect the kind of training that is reasonably possible. All training must include basic numeracy and literacy, and has implications in terms of the length of time required to complete the training. Finally, the cost of training may be affected: the trainer may need qualifications to deliver appropriate numeracy and literacy, over and above the qualifications needed to deliver the specific training protocol.
Low educational achievement has a flow-on effect, particularly when CDEP participants are competing for jobs with non-Indigenous people. Securing employment becomes more challenging without basic skills, and a lack of them also restricts people's ability to undertake further training for career development. This was an issue for some of the larger CDEP organisations located in areas where job opportunities existed outside of the CDEP, but where the competition for these jobs was open to the majority—that is non-Indigenous people with basic numeracy and literacy skills. This situation was considered to be one of the major problems militating against gaining further training through employment. One CDEP considered registering for RTO status just so that they could access funding to provide basic courses in numeracy and literacy and give their clients a better competitive edge.
Many organisations highlighted the difficulty of placing CDEP participants in outside employment because of the problem of low skill levels. To overcome this, some CDEPs have adopted enterprise development as a strategy to assist their participants to become 'job-ready' by giving them basic, 'hands-on' skills. In so doing, they feel they will be in a better position to place their job-ready participants in outside employment, where they can then receive further education and training, and improved access to numeracy and literacy skills. Another solution is to determine what business opportunities exist in the area, develop relevant enterprises to capitalise on these, and thereby create job opportunities for CDEP participants through these enterprises. In this way, the organisations can provide employment and skill development opportunities for their Indigenous clients without their having to compete in the outside employment market.
The value of training is intrinsically connected to its relevance to the people undertaking the training. However, relevant training is not so easily defined. Several issues emerged when we were trying to determine the relevance of training in any given context. Our research suggests that relevant training is strongly associated with local opportunity (see also ANTARAC 1998).
A recurring frustration evident throughout the interviews was that Indigenous people are 'training saturated', but with few identifiable outcomes. Meaningful vocational education and training enables Indigenous individuals and families to maintain an adequate standard of living, as it does for all Australians. However, for many Indigenous people, maintaining a standard of living includes sustaining and managing social and cultural ties. Indigenous people say that they want to determine their training needs so they can engage in training that prepares them for participation in broader economic activity, when and where available, while also participating in training that enables them to maintain a lifestyle that acknowledges and incorporates their cultural responsibilities.
To date, however, training has largely been developed and sold to Indigenous people with the goal of enabling them to contribute to the wider economic activity of the Australian workforce. There has been too little reference to Indigenous aspirations. For example, if training is provided for people to gain the competencies necessary to weld, a generally anticipated outcome is the ability to secure employment in that line of work, wherever there is a job vacancy. However, motivation for an Indigenous person to undergo training in welding may spring from quite different desires. An Indigenous person may initiate training in welding so that he can repair the water pump in the community whenever it breaks down, and thus meet a social need rather than fulfil an economic one. Although not seeking employment in the wider workforce, an Indigenous welder is able to provide a community service that is of value to the rest of his community, while remaining a part of the social fabric of that community. The question arises, whether those responsible for developing policy for training programs, and for providing the funding that is required for their delivery, want to support training that does not necessarily lead to an individual's participation in the labour market.
Training for training's sake has left a legacy of negative attitudes and low expectations. Participation levels in various training programs may have been significant, but outcomes in terms of completions and employment have been negligible relative to the number of people participating. One CDEP used welding as an example, citing the extraordinary amount of training in welding that had gone on over the years with not one Indigenous person employed as a welder in their area. Yet another CDEP employee told of finding a drawer-full of Ranger Certificates. When he tried to hand these out to the certified rangers, each was rejected with complaints from the would-be rangers that they had worked hard to get the certificates, but had not achieved employment as rangers. This training, while considered a success—in terms of completions-by the non—Indigenous providers, was a disaster for the participants. It had led only to disillusionment. Some CDEPs are finding that these negative experiences have left people unwilling to participate in any further training, and sceptical about any assurances that training will change their lives.
CDEPs are in a dilemma over competing priorities. On the one hand they can resource formal training that gives a variety of training experiences to people, but which may or may not lead to further training and employment opportunities. On the other hand, they can give communities the freedom to specify what training they want in response to their immediate needs, recognising that these may be one-off training experiences which generate little ongoing training and few employment opportunities. While the latter may lead to greater participation and may also achieve outcomes that meet the immediate expectations of the community, such training does not necessarily lead to improved pathways for Indigenous people into the wider economy. There is a further consideration: it is not easy to secure funding without some indication of improved employment outcomes. Too often CDEPs are caught in a training mind-frame that automatically links training to employment, leading them to chase the funds that are tied to employment outcomes outside CDEP. In so doing, they lose sight of those training needs of the community that may have no employment outcomes.
A significant message arising from the interviews was that people are not necessarily interested in accredited training for the sake of getting a qualification. Further, they are even less concerned about qualifications that enable them to pursue a trajectory leading towards a career. For many CDEP recipients, pathways to careers are non-existent, and further accredited training and qualifications are therefore irrelevant. However, this should not be construed as a purely negative point of view.
The point is that people do want training, but they do not necessarily want a qualification at the end of it. This puts Indigenous people's participation in the national vocational education and training system somewhat at odds with the goals of ANTA, the organisation responsible for developing a significantly streamlined, nationally articulated, and qualifications focused system. For Indigenous people, however, the issue is the relevance of the training to what people are doing rather than the qualifications gained. Some CDEPs are able to make the training context relevant by developing training environments that include skills acquisition by hands-on training. These training environments are often part of the enterprise development in which the CDEP is engaged, so that the training has an employment outcome within the CDEP, if not outside it. One very large CDEP on the eastern seaboard has identified a niche market and developed a business, with enterprise support. to supply that market. In so doing, it has created a training environment within which CDEP participants can get industry specific training in the anticipation of future employment prospects within that business.
Those CDEPs that are less able to build relevant enterprise within their structure, or which are not located within an economic environment where enterprise development can be sustained, are less able to provide a focus for training. In one such case, the organisation encourages the community to determine its training objectives, leaving the CDEP to broker the training. This training is more often than not unaccredited, one-off, and short term, raising a range of other concerns to do with identifying funding avenues and locating appropriate and willing trainers. This approach also attracts criticism from some training providers who argue that this kind of 'dead end' opportunistic training does not provide transferable skills and qualifications. However, from the perspective of many Indigenous people there is value in this approach, which gives them greater ownership of the objectives and the process. In this particular case, the result has been a high degree of interest and participation in the training, together with a greater sense of accomplishment and corresponding value to the community.
Accredited training may lead to the acquisition of credentials for further career development and portable employment prospects, but Indigenous people's experience is too often that the piece of paper does not change their lives. With one-off training—accredited or not—they are able to get immediate and enduring benefits. Such training puts into their hands the practical skills to build a mechanics' shed, restore a homestead, or to maintain and fix equipment that has lifestyle significance to the community.
Another spin-off of specific, opportunistic training would be that just one person might put their hand up for further training, and their needs could be met within the national training system. The building of intrinsic motivation, together with incremental outcomes that have relevance to the participants, might mean that there is more chance of building a culture of 'life-long learning', which is part of the policy platform developed by ANTA to secure a trained and competitive Australian workforce (ANTA 1998).
Many CDEPs are involved in making strategic decisions about the provision of training opportunities. Some CDEPs have been able to develop the infrastructure necessary to support various enterprise initiatives, providing training opportunities and employment (see e.g. in this volume Gray & Thacker, Ch. 15; Humphries, Ch. 32; Madden, Ch. 18; Young, Ch. 29). Such initiatives are possible in areas where opportunities exist, and are dependent upon the support of a critical mass of population, both in terms of the potential workforce and in relation to market demand. However, locational opportunities are not the only factors influencing the ability of a CDEP to develop significant business enterprises. Others in seemingly less amenable locations have managed to identify the available possibilities and to tap into them (see Nicholas, Ch. 25, this volume). One CDEP saw an opportunity to hire out job-ready people, rather than develop their own enterprise operations; the creation of competitive businesses in the area was thought to be too risky, and an unacceptable drain on available CDEP resources. Its approach has been to assist people to become skilled for the specific jobs available, and to hire them out, thereby generating the income needed to keep the scheme going. It was considered better to provide focused skill development relevant to employment possibilities, using non-accredited and accredited training, to help get CDEP recipients into employment and in this way further improve their access to accredited training through other providers.
Yet another CDEP competes with other businesses in the region by tendering for work required by the local council and some private organisations. Another is developing a business in marketing seeds as a subsidiary business to a horticultural farm where CDEP participants work for their CDEP wages and receive training. The strategic decisions made by these CDEPs provide examples where the work and training environment is developed to initiate enterprise opportunity, that in turn generates further training opportunities.
The securing of adequate resources to facilitate the necessary conditions to promote and deliver vocational education and training is an ongoing concern. In particular, the management of CDEP organisations requires specific skills, yet there is little money to provide the necessary training. Several issues arise out of the need for appropriate resourcing.
We found no cases in which CDEP managers and board members were able to formally access training as part of the CDEP. In part, the problem was a matter of time. A common condition of employment in CDEP management structures is the heavy demand on individuals' time so that finding the opportunity to do training and skill development is nearly impossible (see Lewis, Ch. 30, this volume). The lack of funding to enable the essential training needed to run these organisations keeps the employees under-skilled and the organisations depleted of expertise. One respondent made the poignant observation that they deal with millions of dollars yet there is no money available to train people to manage that money. In a colourful image, he added that they needed to 'suck the money out of the system' in order to provide what little training they could get. Any training that does go on is in-house and opportunistic. If an organisation is fortunate to have a full-time employee within the CDEP who has any skills or job experience whatsoever, these are shared in-house with other employees whenever time permits. Where opportunistic use of employees is not possible, the managers and boards have less success in developing managerial and fiscal strengths within their organisation. One CDEP we surveyed is currently going through another reorganisation with the appointment of a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). This follows a succession of CEOs who were unable to do the job because of a lack of skills. Nor in this instance did the support staff have sufficient skills and training to assist. Some CDEPs find it difficult to attract trained staff for a variety of reasons including location, services, and living conditions, thus contributing to the continuing circumstances which keep dedicated and highly motivated CDEP employees underskilled.
Active CDEPs that engage in training opportunities invariably have a significant person who acts as 'broker'. As well as managing the payroll for CDEP participants and ensuring that basic services are provided, CDEP staff, if they are to make opportunities available for training, have to act as brokers between potential business interests, potential providers of employment for their job-ready participants, funding agencies, and training providers. Managing the articulation of these interests to enable just one person to gain training and employment represents the workload of more than one dedicated full-time position. Many CDEP organisations operate with less than that. The provision of successful training relies upon securing staff with the ability to broker these opportunities, and keep abreast of funding avenues for the initiatives that become possible through various government agencies. It is a significant asset if a staff member has had experience with one of these other organisations, thus bringing to their job a host of contacts to offer advice or information. The need to attract motivated and experienced staff is a major issue. It might only take one person to make possibilities become realities.
There are substantial costs associated with identifying the possibilities available for training. Our research shows that enterprise development provides significant opportunity for relevant training and employment. However, recognising potential and secure business opportunities is time consuming, and risky at the best of times. Some organisations were able to secure consultants who could identify opportunities for enterprise development, locate funding avenues to support that development, and build short and long-term goals and performance indicators for the CDEP. However, consultants cost money and they do not always have the expertise and experience appropriate to advise Indigenous organisations. Funds to engage consultants are available through the Structured Training and Employment Projects (STEP), administered by DEWRSB (see Shergold, Ch. 8, this volume). STEP can assist employers to develop medium to long-term Indigenous recruitment and career projects. Funding assistance though STEP was being well utilised by some CDEPs while others were unaware of its existence or did not fit the profile for such support. Many CDEPs simply felt they lacked the skills, time, and resources to carry out the necessary research and market analysis to develop relevant and viable enterprise opportunities themselves.
The provision of training and the creation of profitable enterprises do not sit easily together. While on-the-job training seems to have the greatest success in maintaining participation and realising outcomes, it also presents CDEP enterprises with tough decisions. CDEP management must ensure that appropriate training opportunities are available, but they also have to take into consideration various costs of training in relation to the overall viability of the organisation. They cannot divert CDEP money used to support the wages of those CDEP participants who are not involved in CDEP enterprises. Moreover, when training is undertaken, it often takes longer than average for participants to move through the competencies of accredited training. For these reasons, making accredited training as a priority has implications for a business's ability to remain competitive, and to fulfil its wider obligations to the community.
Another issue raised by the respondents was the cost of providing training opportunities, particularly in relation to the New Apprenticeships scheme. One CDEP calculated that it cost the organisation approximately an extra $75.00 per apprentice or trainee per week. This represented the shortfall between paying the apprentice or trainee their CDEP entitlement, and DEWRSB's wage assistance top-up. This shortfall poses a dilemma. The decision to support people in attaining accredited training through employment via the New Apprenticeships scheme militates against the equitable distribution of CDEP wages to all potential recipients. Creaming off dollars in this way means 'robbing Peter to pay Paul'.
Some CDEPs raised the issue that profits accrued through their enterprise activity led to reductions in the CDEP monies made available to them in the following round of CDEP regional funding allocations (and see also Loomes, Ch. 31, this volume). In this sense there is a cost to profit which blocks the reinvestment of CDEP enterprise profits in further training and employment opportunities. There were some instances where profits where being diverted to other parts of the CDEP, for example to set up new enterprises, or to meet the cost of applying for grants, tender submissions, or train other staff. The profit made by CDEP enterprise needs to be available for improving the viability and development of enterprise activity rather than flowing towards the propping up of other CDEP responsibilities usually supported through ATSIC's CDEP funding.
CDEPs and the regional CDEP organisations face difficulties in gaining access to information about the wide range of programs available for vocational education and training and related funding. The complex relationships between Commonwealth, State or Territory, and private organisations which are involved in developing policy, implementing programs, and providing various kinds of funding for vocational education and training is almost impossible to comprehend, even for those working in the various agencies. Navigating one's way through these complex relationships and finding the appropriate vocational education and training programs and funding avenues requires experience, initiative, and human resources. For a CDEP intimately engaged with the day-to-day local issues that challenge its participants, and which also attempts to broker relationships with local businesses, local governments, and schools in its efforts to find available opportunities, the added burden of chasing programs and funding presents almost insurmountable barriers. One CDEP manager had found a 'very helpful person' within his Territory Training Authority whom he could rely on for advice and assistance in getting funding. Finding his 'speck of gold' meant that he was able to accomplish much more. Larger organisations dedicated a specific position within the CDEP to developing ongoing contacts within their State or Territory Training Authorities.
Identified money for training is not a part of the funding formula considered in ATSIC's CDEP allocations. This point was raised by Spicer in his 1997 report on CDEPs. As a result, if CDEPs are going to provide more than 'sit-down money' they have to become creative, and they experience varying degrees of success in brokering training opportunities.
There are currently two labour market initiatives, separated by a chasm. On one side of the divide is the funded support provided by ATSIC for the CDEP, a program created to provide development and employment opportunities for people living in Indigenous communities. On the other side of the divide are funded employment initiatives designed to target improved access for Indigenous people to employment opportunity, most notably through DEWRSB's Indigenous Employment Strategy. However, as noted throughout this discussion, the population targeted for this support has a relatively low education and skill base from which to build specialised, industry-based training. The extra training that is required to accomplish something seemingly as simple as training for an outboard motor license, an occupational health and safety certificate, or a Level I certificate in Building Construction attracts little funding. For a CDEP to provide this kind of basic support there is a corresponding need for recurrent funding, specifically directed towards training initiatives that develop basic competencies to enable people to achieve success in their training experiences.