The Productivity Commission (PC) has published a report examining the impact of the reforms implemented by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).

 

The Commission’s role was to assess the economic impacts of the reforms and, where practicable, examine whether the reforms potential were being met and opportunities properly explored.

 

For the first report in the series, the Assistant Treasurer has directed the Commission to focus on the impacts and benefits of two reform areas:

  • aspects of the 'seamless national economy' deregulation priorities
  • the vocational education and training (VET) reforms and initiatives that support young people make successful transitions from school to further education, training and employment.

 

The report concluded that COAG reforms in the VET area include the potential to:

  • Increase GDP by a total of 1.95 per cent
  • Boost productivity by 0.35 per cent
  • Increase completions by 1.29 million over the period 2010-2020
  • Increase the gross payments to individuals over their working life by more than $108 billion.

 

The Productivity Commission report identified the following reforms were needed, which align with the Commonwealth’s reform agenda announced by the Prime Minister ahead of COAG last month:

  • Better quality through regulation – the Commonwealth established the Australian Standards Quality Authority to ensure nationally consistent regulation of VET providers;
  • Greater transparency for users – the Government is developing the My Skills website, to be launched later this year;
  • Better information available for students – the Commonwealth’s Unique Student Identifier will allow students to build a online skills passport that tracks their training history;
  • Increased completions - The Commonwealth has set completion targets in the agreement with the States to tackle low completion rates in the VET sector.

 

The Commission’s report can be found here