It has been known for years in the residential child care field voluntary agencies are severely handicapped by the fact that the way one agency records its income and expenditure is quite different from the next agency. The most immediate effect is that since little sense can be made of what it really costs to keep a child in care, it is virtually impossible to organize a case as to how current government subsidies should be varied which will convince ourselves, much less the Victorian State Treasury.

In 1974 – 75, notwithstanding this limitation, the Children’s Welfare Association of Victoria (C.W.A.V.), through its “Survival Committee”, was able to negotiate substantial and largely positive changes to the then subsidy system, although limitations in what was developed were obvious before the new scheme was implemented. It must be recognized, however, that the “Survival Committee” belongs to another era. Here are just a few reasons why: