25/06/2026
The Institute of Employability Professionals (IEP) has submitted a formal response to the Australian Government’s Shaping the Future of Employment Services discussion paper, released by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR). The paper sets out a proposed direction for reforming Australia’s employment services system, and IEP Australia welcomes the opportunity to contribute its professional expertise and international perspective to this important conversation.
The full discussion paper is available at: https://www.dewr.gov.au/download/17634/shaping-future-employment-services-discussion-paper/42864/document/pdf
IEP Australia broadly welcomes the direction of the DEWR consultation paper. The proposed reforms move in a humane and evidence-informed direction, and we are supportive of the initiatives being proposed. We also believe we can actively support, contribute to, and help shape the results. However, we note that important detail is still missing, and we call for a longer and more thorough national debate about the professionalisation of employment services.
Here is a summary of our key observations.
On the Four Core Ideals
Employment as the primary goal is uncontroversial — but the paper’s framing could be sharpened. Capability, confidence, and qualifications need to extend beyond the immediate job at hand; they must also encompass a person’s ability to choose an occupation, find an opportunity, compete against others, and retain employment over the long term. These are foundational to lasting success, not just immediate placement.
Meaningful supports are warmly welcomed. The paper hints at a valuable shift towards better and well-evidenced practice. What we would add is that participants should not only be active in their own journey — in good employment practice, they become leaders and choosers of their own goals and activities. This principle needs to be more explicitly built into the detail of the new system.
Easy navigation is a sound aspiration that must be enacted through evidence-based behavioural quality standards. Contract compliance and performance measurement alone have not fulfilled this need in the past. As the professional body for employability practitioners, the IEP is ready and willing to assist in developing those standards.
Public service stewardship is appropriate, while recognising that government is not the sole body equipped to design, improve, and respond. A great deal is known — much of it originating in Australia — about what works and how. Implementation always requires expertise and care, and the IEP stands ready to assist.
On the Three Streams
We welcome the move towards triage, assessment, and tailored streams of service. Streaming is not new, but it does not always lead to effective supports and can, if poorly managed, do harm — for example when access to support is made conditional on duration of unemployment, despite need being present from day one.
Early and thorough assessment is essential. Done well, it reduces downstream costs by eliminating misallocation, provider parking, and the cycling-in-and-out pattern the paper itself documents. Any focus on early costs alone is likely to be misplaced; it is the whole-programme rewards for participants and society that matter.
We caution that the description of the new assessment process focuses largely on things done to the participant, rather than with them. The difference between an effective employment plan and an administrative compliance instrument is not process design — it is whether the participant’s own aspirations and agency are the organising logic.
The Employment Goal Plan, as described, is under-developed. Much is known about how such plans can become bureaucratic measures of programme performance rather than enabling and confidence-building practices. The IEP and its professional members offer to help build the best models.
On Employer Engagement
We support the spirit of actively engaging employers as strategic partners. There is a substantial body of international experience relating to building partnerships with industry and large employers to create jobs and skills pathways — experience the IEP can connect the sector to.
We also note that local labour market coordination and place-based mechanisms are most successful when they operate in close, in-person contact with employers and involve diverse local institutions.
On job-matching platforms: we acknowledge their practical value, while cautioning against over-reliance. Digital tools are an adjunct to — not a substitute for — direct employer and job-task engagement.
On Frontline Staff and Local Solutions
We agree that frontline staff with the right skills and capabilities are essential to serving diverse cohorts effectively. The evidence is clear: core quality factors are foundational across all groups, while delivery arrangements need to be appropriately focused for each.
Supporting diverse cohorts requires staff and local delivery partnerships to be resourced and equipped with relevant skills, systematic competencies, and the ability to work closely with local communities. This can only happen in a service that offers continuity of employment for staff, continuity of delivery mechanisms, and is resourced to support ongoing professional development and, in time, accreditation.
The IEP has a growing suite of learning and skill development opportunities, including specialisms across different service intensities and participant circumstances, which we are ready to share and adapt as the new service develops.
On Payment Regimes and Performance Measures
These are difficult and complex areas that carry real risks of encouraging maladaptive delivery behaviours. The discussion paper’s descriptions of provider service incentives remain too vague for meaningful comment at this stage. Developing a fair, targeted, and purposeful system will require open discussion, study of exemplary international models, and political decisions about risk-sharing.
The IEP believes this discussion needs to be genuinely open and shared — while remaining aware of the competing interests involved.
On Continuous Improvement
The IEP’s Centre for Employability Excellence has developed the Quality Improvement Framework (QIF) — an evidence-based description of quality mechanisms and employment guidance covering frontline, partnership, and leadership activities. The QIF is contract-neutral and has been used and adapted in Australia, Sweden, Northern Ireland, Saudi Arabia, and — most recently — to support the UK’s Department for Work and Pensions as it transitions its new Jobs and Careers Service towards a delivery model closely aligned to what this consultation paper proposes.
That work has involved in-person consultative discovery of organisational change, supporting culture change, adapting the QIF for internal management use, and creating a coaching and learning academy. We are ready to bring these same tools and approaches to Australia.
Our Conclusion
You cannot legislate for quality. When you try, systems and people adapt to the legislation — not always positively — rather than adapting to clients and labour markets. Contract compliance is a necessity; contract domination of daily practice is not.
We draw a constructive parallel with the medical professions — not to medicalise our work, but to acknowledge that in health settings, governments make important decisions about funding and access while clinical procedure properly belongs with trained professionals working within mature ethical frameworks and a strong body of scientific research. A similar development is needed in employability.
The IEP therefore endorses the overall direction of the consultation — with caveats — but calls for a longer and more thorough debate about professionalisation. Contract and policy design matters to that debate; so too does the science and practice of employability, and the culture and ethical choices that underpin it.
We would welcome a discussion with Ministers, senior officials, providers, and frontline practitioners. Specifically, we could contribute immediately on:
- Reviewing, planning, testing, and implementing professionalisation pathways
- Refining and applying the Quality Improvement Framework for the Australian context
- Developing skills and competencies for frontline staff and managers
- Expanding the work of the Centre for Employability Excellence in Australia, including hosting a dedicated Australian debate in our Perspectives Seminar Series
Our full response can be viewed here
We look forward to being part of this conversation.