About this site

This website reports on the Outcomes Framework, which is part of Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021–2031 (the Strategy). It uses data to look at things that people with disability have said need to improve if Australia is to be more inclusive.

The site shows what some areas of life were like for people with disability when the Strategy started. It will then look at how things are going until the Strategy ends in 2031. This information is available to everyone, and will help governments to make decisions and improve outcomes for people with disability. 

How is progress reported?

Progress is reported by looking at the baseline and latest data for each measure:

• Baseline data are the information that is available closest to the start of the Strategy (December 2021).
  • For measures collected every year this is likely to be just before the start of the Strategy.
  • For measures collected every few years, like survey data, the baseline may be 2018 or earlier.
  • For measures where the data are being developed, the baseline will be whenever the first set of information is released.
• Latest data are the most recent information available for a measure. Because the Strategy has just started the latest data are the same as the baseline data for most measures.
  • Each measure will be updated as soon as new data becomes available.
  • Some measures will be updated yearly or more often.
  • Other measures can only be updated every few years.

• Where measures have both baseline and latest data, these can be compared to see how things are tracking. Four symbols are used to show if things are getting better:

• Progress – this is used where there are 2 or more data points, including at least one data point after the start of the Strategy (December 2021), and the measure is moving in the direction the Strategy wants to see.
• No change – this is used for measures with 2 or more different data points, including at least one data point after the start of the Strategy (December 2021), and the latest data are similar to the baseline.
• Regress – this is used where there are 2 or more data points, including at least one data point after the start of the Strategy (December 2021), and the measure is not moving in the direction the Strategy wants to see.
• Not enough data – this is used when there are not enough data available yet to report on progress. This occurs when there is only one data point available (usually the baseline) or data after the start of the Strategy (December 2021) is yet to become available. In the early years of the Strategy this will be the case for many measures.

In March 2023, 48 measures are on this site. Initial progress can be tracked for 16 of these measures. For some measures, updated data only cover the first 6 months of the Strategy and should be treated as preliminary.

More measures from the Outcomes Framework will be added to the site as data become available. Rather than limit reporting to information that was available in 2021, people with disability wanted the Outcomes Framework to track some things that need future data development to enable reporting (see About future data development).

More information on how comparisons are made is included in the first annual report, see Technical notes, Appendix A: Methods.

Where do the data come from?

The data on this site come from a lot of different sources. Some information is collected by the Australian, state and territory government departments and agencies as part of the services they provide. Other information is collected in surveys.

For more information about the data used on this website, see Data dictionary and Data sources.

Data challenges 

The best available data are used to report on how the Strategy is going. However, because most of the data sources used were created before the Strategy started, sometimes the data available does not match exactly what the Strategy would like to track.

For example, there are a lot of different ways to define ‘disability’.  This can mean that sometimes data are not available for all the groups the Strategy would like to know about.

Diversity is an important part of reporting outcomes for people with disability. Currently, many data collections have limited ways to record diversity. For example, they ask only if someone is male or female.

New data sources will be developed to report more fully on people with disability.