Is headspace making a difference to young people’s lives?

Appendix B
Use of alternative ASGS boundaries - Urban Centres and Localities
Key messages
• This alternative model aims to improve access with the use of Urban Centres and
Locality (UCL) boundaries in non-metropolitan areas. The UCL boundaries may better
capture service hubs compared to SA3s, which are used in the current model.
• There are 1,592 UCLs in non-metropolitan Australia, and less than 200 of these
locations have youth populations exceeding 1,000 persons. Some of these already
have access to headspace services.
• If centres are allocated allowing all UCLs to be in-scope, with no lower limit on region
size, the number of headspace centres created would be large. As in alternative
model 1 (data driven approach), this would make the implementation of this model
prohibitively expensive.
• If a lower limit of 1,000 youth population was set, 22 areas currently without
headspace services would be in-scope for centre allocation. This would include 5 new
centres in metropolitan areas and 17 new centres in non-metropolitan UCL regions.
• If a lower limit of 3,500 youth population was used, which is the size of the
current smallest headspace centre under the current allocation model used by the
Department, 5 additional sites could be allocated in metropolitan areas and 2 in nonmetropolitan
areas.
• Additional information regarding capacity, existing services, travel routes, and cost of
centres which vary from the traditional model would allow the number of centres, and
the cost of implementation, to be estimated.
Rationale
The use of SA3s as the unit of allocation for centres in regional areas may not be optimal. ABS data
show that SA3s are typically functional areas of regional cities, and large urban transport and service
hubs. As previously outlined, these areas are often large, particularly in rural and remote areas and,
as a result, may not represent service catchment areas of realistic travel distances for headspace
service access.
An alternative geographic classification, which falls outside the main ASGS structure, is the Urban
Centres and Localities (UCL) classification. The ABS classification states that ‘Urban centres and
localities (UCLs) are geographical units that statistically describe Australian population centres with
populations exceeding 200 persons.’(ABS, 2011) These units are created via the aggregation of
contiguous SA1s and are designed for the purpose of data release from the census of population
and housing. Areas are defined based on their population size. Areas with a population of 1,000 or
more are considered Urban Centres. Areas which have populations greater than 200 and an urban
population below 1,000 are classified as Localities. These areas represent rural populations.
Centre allocation based on the UCL boundaries may result in a closer approximation of realistic
service catchment areas for headspace services in non-metropolitan areas. However, in metropolitan
areas, the use of UCL boundaries results in areas with very large populations, which are unlikely
to be serviceable by a single headspace centre. For example, the single urban centre of Sydney
contains more than 700,000 12-25 year olds and a total population of almost 4 million. This
alternative model of allocation therefore assigns centres to UCLs in non-metropolitan areas and
SA4s in metropolitan areas. This definition of access was based on discussions with hNO.
Defining catchment areas
Across Australia, there are a total of 684 urban centres, 1,128 localities and 27 special purpose
UCLs. As outlined above, centres in metropolitan areas could be assigned centres at the SA4 level,
and those areas in non-metropolitan areas assigned centres based on the UCL geographies. Urban
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