Reflections from the NCOSS Post-Budget Breakfast
Last Wednesday, the Inner Sydney Voice team joined sector peers at the NCOSS Post-Budget Breakfast to hear directly from the NSW Treasurer and Shadow Treasurer about the 2025–26 State Budget.
While the budget delivered some reform and investment in the child protection system, we were disappointed to see no increased funding for early intervention and prevention services, Targeted Early Intervention (TEI) programs and the neighbourhood centres that support them.
NSW Treasurer and Shadow Treasurer discuss the 2025-26 Budget at the NCOSS Post-Budget BreakfastThe Treasurer acknowledged at the NCOSS breakfast, that the Out-of-Home Care (OOHC) system was unsustainable. He positioned this Budget as laying the groundwork for future reform, stating the government now has a “more stable platform” with “capacity for broader reform,” and flagged “prevention” as “the next stage.”
The community sector has been calling for that stage for years. We know that crisis responses, while essential, are not enough. If prevention is truly the next step, it must come with investment in the social infrastructure that supports people before they face crisis.
TEI and Neighbourhood Centres: Under Pressure, Underfunded
TEI providers and neighbourhood centres are bearing the weight of rising demand across communities. With no corresponding uplift in funding, these services are increasingly forced to pivot away from early support and community development toward emergency response.
This shift undermines what we know works: proactive, place-based approaches that build connection, resilience and wellbeing. These approaches help address the root causes of disadvantage, poverty, discrimination, violence and homelessness—and reduce long-term reliance on high-cost crisis services.
Investing in strengths-based models, led by community voices and lived experience, is the smart thing to do. It builds social cohesion, keeps people safe, and strengthens outcomes across the board.
Inner Sydney Voice joins our sector colleagues in calling for early intervention to be more than an afterthought in future budgets. We are ready to work with the NSW Government to make prevention a central, not future, priority.
Performance and Wellbeing Framework & Gender Equality Statement Introduced
This Budget also introduced two major policy shifts: the Performance and Wellbeing Framework and the Gender Equality Budget Statement (both promising steps toward more inclusive and transparent decision-making).
The Performance and Wellbeing Framework aims to align government spending with community outcomes, using indicators to measure impact. The Gender Equality Budget Statement introduces a Gender Impact Assessment Policy, requiring assessments for new proposals over $10 million. These are welcome developments.
But their value will lie in how meaningfully they are implemented. Indicators must reflect the diverse lived experiences of our communities. Reporting must be transparent and responsive—not just to Treasury, but to the community sector and the people we work alongside.
These tools build on the NSW Human Services Outcome Framework already used in TEI and other programs. But they must go further—to embed equity, prevention, and long-term thinking into the heart of budget decisions.
What Comes Next?
If the 2025–26 Budget was about stabilisation, then the 2026–27 Budget must be about transformation. The groundwork has been laid. The community sector is ready. The next stage must not be years away, it must be now.
We urge the NSW Government to back its frameworks with real investment in early intervention, neighbourhood centres, and the services that keep people connected, safe, and well.
📖 Read more: