Client Management System (CMS) for the Specialist Homelessness Services Collection (SHSC)

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) is a Commonwealth statutory authority providing high-quality, independent evidence on health and welfare in Australia for over 30 years. Our data, products and services enhance the delivery of health and welfare for Australia by enabling other organisations to design, review and improve their policies and services through the better use of reliable evidence.

The AIHW is committed to collecting, analysing and reporting high quality information on homelessness in Australia. In 2010, the AIHW developed a national Specialist Homelessness Services Collection (SHSC) in conjunction with state and territory governments, and data collection commenced on 1 July 2011. This collection supports national reporting under the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement (NHHA).

To assist specialist homelessness services agencies to provide high quality data to AIHW for the SHSC, the AIHW, in conjunction with state and territory governments, implemented the Specialist Homelessness Information Platform (SHIP), as an optional client management solution. It is intended that the new CMS will continue to support the range of SHS agencies that are providers of the homelessness data for the SHSC. These agencies require a CMS that will continue to facilitate the provision of services to their homeless, at risk or family violence clients, and provide a reporting function to provide this data to AIHW according to the requirements of the SHSC NMDS from 1 July 2021.

The AIHW requires a Service Provider to provide a Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) Client Management Solution and associated services incorporating the service elements of design, development, implementation, support and maintenance for an initial period of three (3) years with two (2) options to extend the initial period, each by a period of up to two (2) years. The CMS is to be implemented by 1 July 2021.

The CMS will be used by agencies to manage their clients and will enable agencies to provide data to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) to meet their reporting obligations in accordance with the Specialist Homelessness Services Collection (SHSC) National Minimum Data Set (NMDS).