State and Territory compliance | National Health Funding Body

The Administrator’s rolling Three Year Data Plan outlines the minimum data required from jurisdictions to calculate and report on National Health Reform funding, in line with the Addendum, while specifying submission timelines and how data will be used.

Each quarter, a compliance report is published that details whether States, Territories and the Commonwealth have met their obligations under the Data Plan.

Through engagement with States and Territories, Compliance with the Administrator’s Data Plan has improved over time, including the timeliness of data submissions. However, there are some areas of concern that require more work, such as the transparency of out-of-scope activity and provision of State Prices.

For further details, please see below:

As reported in the Administrator's December 2024 Compliance Report, with respect to the timeliness of Submission A, seven out of eight States provided their data on time, with New South Wales yet to provide the Alternate Funding Source dataset.
All monthly financial reports were completed by States on or before the due date of the 12th of the following month.
Service Agreements between the States and LHNs support transparency in public hospital funding and service delivery, and are provided to the Administrator once finalised. Service Agreements are to include, at a minimum (E7):
a. the number and broad mix of services to be provided by the LHN, to inform the community of the expected outputs from the LHN and allow the Administrator to calculate the Commonwealth’s funding contribution
b. the quality and service standards that apply to services delivered by the LHN, including the Performance and Accountability Framework and the level of funding to be provided to the LHN under the Service Agreement, through ABF and Block funding
c. the teaching, training and research functions to be undertaken at the LHN level.
In addition, the funding paid on an activity basis to LHNs will be based on the price set by that State as reported in Service Agreements, the State Price (A92).
The Administrator and NHFB have been working with States and Territories to highlight inconsistencies in Service Agreements and identify where improvements can be made including on:
accuracy of State Prices
identification of in-scope and out-of-scope activity
timely provision of Service Agreements to the Administrator.
As reported in the Administrator's December 2024 Quarterly Compliance Report, four out of eight States and Territories submitted all 2024-25 Service Agreements (ABF and Block LHNs) to the Administrator, with New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia providing partial submissions to date. 110 out of 135 service agreements have been submitted to the Administrator.
Of these submissions, 49 out of 110 Service Agreements received were submitted to the Administrator within the required 14 calendar days from finalisation or amendment.
Of the 95 ABF LHN Service Agreements submitted to the Administrator, 31 align to activity estimate submissions as at 30 November 2024, compared to 17 out of 49 in September 2024.
Under clause A102 of the Addendum, all Parties agreed to maintain, at a minimum, their levels of funding for public hospital services through the Pool from 2020-21 to 2024-25, at no less than the 2018-19 funding level. This commitment is made while recognising that new models of care may change the setting in which care is delivered.
The assessment of Maintenance of Effort focuses on in-scope public hospital services as define under the NHR Agreement. Out-of-scope activity refers to non-hospital services or public hospital services funded outside the NHR Agreement.
This assessment has identified inconsistencies in how in-scope and out-of-scope funding is transacted through the Pool, as well as discrepancies in pricing and activity information published in LHN Service Agreements.
Due to data limitations on Block funding, the current assessment is based solely on in-scope Activity Based Funding. Further work is planned in 2024-25 to enable us to include in-scope Block funding into future iterations of the report.
The published Maintenance of Effort Reports details:
the total in-scope ABF public hospital activity that was delivered
the Price the State set for activity
the Commonwealth funding entitlement as determined by the Commonwealth Treasurer
the State funding entitlement (i.e. the balance)
the State funding contribution transacted through the Pool
The Administrator will continue to work with all Parties to the Addendum towards achieving consistency and transparency in the reporting of public hospital funding (A103).
For further details, please visit Annual Report 2022-23 Maintenance of Effort.