NT Shelter engaged the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) to investigate how data can be used more effectively to demonstrate the capacity, performance and impact of the urban community housing sector in the Northern Territory. The project maps publicly available data, consults the community housing sector on their current data holdings and reporting requirements, and makes recommendations for a more cohesive, sector-wide data approach.
This project was supported by the NT Government with funding from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Community Development.
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Key findings
The sector’s most important contributions are the least well measured
Tenant support, early intervention and community development are the most distinctive community housing organisation contributions yet the least well reported.
Data systems are fragmented and largely compliance-driven
Most community housing organisations use multiple platforms that are not integrated with each other, requiring separate user input for each and making it difficult to prioritise or interpret what is collected.
Standard metrics do not reflect NT system constraints
Applying national benchmarks without contextual adjustment creates misleading comparisons given NT’s unique structural constraints.
Reporting duplication is a significant burden
Overlap between National Regulatory System for Community Housing and NT Government reporting requires essentially the same information at different reporting periods.
Anti-social behaviour data are a credibility risk for the sector
Reporting is reactive and does not distinguish by incident type or root cause, leaving the sector vulnerable to misinterpretation.
Data governance is foundational to NT Shelter’s stewardship role
Community housing organisations support data sharing conditionally, requiring bounded purpose, community housing organisation oversight, reduced reporting burden, and a credible framework.
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Recommendations
The report provides 11 recommendations on data collection and governance practices to support the development of a collective data resource for the NT urban community housing sector.
The emphasis throughout is on data that are credible, defensible under external scrutiny, and enable the sector to drive the narrative around impact, performance and capacity. Getting the support of key stakeholders and developing principles for data governance underpin the successful development of the proposed data resource.
