Mission 1 | Department of Communities and Justice
DCJ is undertaking the POCLS to understand more about the life-course developmental trajectories of children and young people who experience OOHC for part, or all, of their childhood. The evidence will inform policy and practice to improve the socio-emotional, cognitive, physical, mental health and other life-course outcomes for this cohort of children. The POCLS survey data provides in-depth information collected from children, young people, caregivers, caseworkers and teachers, and when linked to service data (health, education, justice, welfare), forms a significant data asset that provides strong evidence to inform policy and practice, and improve decision making and support for children and young people who cannot live safely at home.
To ensure Aboriginal community members and stakeholders are better engaged as equal research partners, and the evidence informs policy and practice to improve the outcomes of Aboriginal children and families, an Aboriginal Governance Panel (AGP) was needed to provide oversight and direction to the POCLS and play a key role in the strategic research agenda. The POCLS AGP advises on data collection, analysis, interpretation and translation of findings into policy and practice, with a focus on Aboriginal community control, accountability and engagement. The AGP meets the requirements of the AH&MRC human research ethics committee.
Mission 2 | Department of Communities and Justice
The University of Sydney wanted to understand family with complex needs that include domestic and family violence (DFV), alcohol and other drug (AOD) use, and mental health (MH) issues. These issues have been identified as a national priority in ‘Safe and Supported: The National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children’. Researchers recognised that these complex needs are considered key parental behavioural risk factors to children’s safety, and they want to further understand how these factors intersect with child protection and out-of-home care.
Mission 2 | Department of Communities and Justice
Vulnerable people typically use services across multiple service domain, meaning their data crosses multiple government agencies. This can make it challenging to holistically compare the effectiveness of human services programs.
An investment approach to human services relies on a comparative assessment of the effectiveness of programs designed to deliver social and health outcomes and to quantify the likely impact of policy settings. To achieve these goals, the implementation of an investment approach would require the development of a comprehensive linked data asset and a projection model that could assess future service use and costs across those service domains and assess a variety of likely scenarios based on differences in outcome results across programs.
The Forecasting Future Outcomes (FFO) model was developed to support the implementation of an investment approach for human services in NSW that would direct and prioritise whole-of-government funding to deliver evidence-based solutions that achieve meaningful and measurable outcomes for vulnerable people in NSW.
Mission 2 | Department of Communities and Justice
The NSW Child Development Study (NSW-CDS) is a long-term, data linkage study following a cohort of over 91,000 children in NSW from birth to adulthood. It uses administrative data from state and Commonwealth departments and checks in with the children at different ages. The study links data about the health, education, justice, child protection and welfare records of the children and their parents (where available) spanning the years 1971 – 2024. The main goal of the NSW-CDS is to understand how early life and intergenerational experiences affect later mental health issues and associated child protection contacts, physical health, education, social outcomes, and involvement with the justice system in adolescence and adulthood.
Mission 2 | Department of Education
The Department is responsible for preparing young people for rewarding lives as engaged citizens by regulating and supporting the early childhood education and care sector, delivering high-quality public education, and supporting the delivery of a skilled and employable workforce through vocational education, training and higher education. The Department primarily relies on survey data to understand students’ post-school outcomes, but existing datasets do not provide a comprehensive understanding of students’ education-to-work pathways.
Mission 2 | Department of Communities and Justice
Vulnerable people typically use services across multiple service domains, meaning their data crosses multiple government agencies. There are many gaps in the evidence base in measuring the effectiveness of human services programs in NSW in achievement of targeted participant outcome changes. A measurement model is required that should be widely applicable, using a standardised, robust framework, designed to provide comparable, ongoing assessments of program outcomes.
Mission 4 | Transport for NSW
The Asset Information Strategy is TfNSW’s approach to transforming how asset information is managed. The vision is to provide cluster-wide structured asset information and data to support effective decision making at all stages of the asset lifecycle.
TfNSW is experiencing multiple challenges in the asset management landscape including: lack of confidence in information quality; asset information is not valued as an asset; fragmented, high-cost, unsustainable technology portfolio, lack of ownership leading to information value erosion; inefficient operations and reduced clarity of decision making; information quality degradation leading to higher costs and incompatibility; lack of visibility regarding the performance, risk, condition, planning and delivery of Transport assets.
The Asset Information Strategy will address these challenges by providing one integrated framework, standards, systems and approach for asset management. Delivering Asset Information Strategy initiatives will: enable TfNSW to comply with the NSW Treasury Asset Management Policy, support a sustainable future for TfNSW as part of the Asset Future Sustainability Program, transform how we manage asset information as an asset at TfNSW, and provide an optimised application portfolio with visibility of the whole-of-life asset management lifecycle.
Mission 4 | NSW Health
NSW Health data is collected and managed in a wide range of specialised systems, such as bookings, clinical and finance systems. This fragmentation creates challenges in accessing and linking relevant information in real-time to help NSW Health staff better coordinate hospital operations such as patient flows across its 228 hospitals in a single holistic view.
Mission 2 | NSW Treasury
Government is introducing the Performance and Wellbeing Framework (the Framework) in the 2025-26 Budget in recognition of a need for improved performance reporting on how Government drives wellbeing outcomes across NSW. The Framework includes measurement and reporting on the wellbeing of NSW, and on how Government is contributing to outcomes that improve wellbeing. The success of the Framework depends on high quality outcomes measurement, supported by fit for purpose data.
Mission 1 | Transport for NSW
Transport for NSW identified the need to provide trusted, easily accessible data as to enabler innovative mobility related digital solutions & services for the people of NSW. The Open Data Hub also aims to address the challenge of accessing and using quality, easy to understand data to support actionable insights and evidence-based NSW mobility related decisions.