NSW Treasury is undertaking an independent evaluation of the 2021 COVID-19 Business Support Programs provided during the Delta lockdown from July 2021 until November 2021:
- the COVID-19 Business Grant,
- the 2021 JobSaver payment, and
- the COVID-19 Micro-business Grant.
The independent evaluation, led by John Pierce AO, will examine the efficiency, effectiveness, and appropriateness of the three grant programs to determine whether the programs were implemented as intended, were value for money, achieved their outcomes and delivered the programs’ anticipated economic benefits. Lessons learned will be used to inform future policy responses.
The evaluation will explore questions including:
- Given the health, fiscal and economic circumstances at the time the COVID-19 Business Support Programs were developed, were the objectives of the programs appropriately defined, targeted, and understood by stakeholders?
- To what extent did the programs meet the aim of helping NSW businesses preserve jobs and survive the impact of COVID-19 restrictions?
- Did the COVID-19 Business Support Programs get the right balance between the speed of implementation and integrity of the programs given the uncertainty at the time?
- If there was a pandemic again in New South Wales, what would it need to look like in terms of design, delivery and roll out?
Why evaluate?
The NSW Government’s 2021 COVID-19 Business Support Programs provided a package of financial support to help ensure a sustainable economic environment in New South Wales at the time of a public health crisis.
Given the size of the grants programs being around $10 billion*, the involvement of multiple NSW Government agencies and the Australian Government in its development, funding and implementation, a comprehensive evaluation of the support programs is being undertaken. The insights and lessons learnt from this will inform future program design in the event of a crisis response, such as a natural disaster or pandemic.
The evaluation will be undertaken in line with NSW Government Evaluation Guidelines (TPG22-22).
*includes Australian Government contribution to JobSaver
Consultation
Consultation was undertaken from late March 2024 to July 2024 and involved:
- in-person consultations, including roundtables
- online business survey.
Online business survey
NSW Treasury has engaged Taverner Research Group (Taverner) to manage the online survey.
The survey will be in field from late May to end of June.
Data collected from the survey will be assessed and analysed to inform the program evaluation and be reported in the Evaluation Report.
Taverner is a NSW based, independent, privately owned market and social research agency. Taverner is certified to ISO 20252:2019, the international standard for Market and Social Research as well as a member of Australian Data and Insights Association (ADIA, formally AMSRO). In addition, all Project Directors and Project Managers working with Taverner Research Group are members of The Research Society. These certifications and memberships ensure that privacy, security and compliance with professional standards are at the forefront of all research work undertaken.
Any information provided to Taverner as part of this program evaluation will be analysed in aggregate. No information will be reported to NSW Treasury that could be traced to any single person or business. Click this link to view Taverner’s privacy policy https://taverner.com.au/privacy-policy/
