ACCORD seminar in association with the Council of Social Service of New South Wales (NCOSS).

ACCORD recently completed the first survey of the 33,000 incorporated associations registered with the NSW Registry of Co-operatives and Associations. Andrew Passey, a Senior Research Fellow at ACCORD, presented the findings of this latest research to a gathering of government, industry and non-profit organisations at a seminar on 21 May in Sydney.

'Preliminary analysis reveals some significant findings,' he said. 'We now know most of the 33,000 associations in NSW are small and employ no staff - meaning that they rely solely on the efforts of their members and other volunteers to sustain their activities. In total, these organisations have 2.35 million members, who pay fees for their membership but also undertake activities in their associations as active members. Some even take responsibility for legal and management activities - we estimate that there are around 130,000 committee members in associations in NSW. We found too that 28,000 people were employed by associations, despite the fact that only a minority has any paid staff at all'.

'Associations benefit from tax incentives provided by State and Commonwealth Government, and 30% of them receive direct funding from government - to the tune of $721 million. These organisations will be delivering services on behalf of government, both to their members and the wider communities in which they operate. Service delivery is concentrated in the community services field - $638 million was spent in 2002/3 by associations in that particular industry. Other important areas of activity include interest groups and religious organisations ($251 million was spent by these kinds of association in 2002/3) and sport and recreation ($200 million)'.

'When we analysed geographically we found a significant Sydney effect - over half of the sector's total income is raised by Sydney-based associations, and these same organisations account for more than 70% of total members. However, when we allow for the differences in population across the state we find the highest associational density in the landlocked west, where income, membership and volunteers per head of population are higher than anywhere else in the state. Clearly associations have an extended reach into communities in the remotest parts of NSW.'

'There is though, a problem of capacity. Our findings show the smallest associations spent more in 2002/3 than they raised, provoking concerns about their sustainability. We found a lower density of formal organisational networks in the west than elsewhere - suggesting that here associations are opting out of such links, or these kinds of networks are not available to them. We would call on peaks, government and other development agencies to consider the reasons behind such a finding, and to ponder its possible implications for the sector's health. We found too that while the responsibilities of associations under the NSW legislation are relatively minor, they face a multitude of regulatory agency requirements at state and commonwealth levels for the purposes of fundraising, tax exemption and GST. As such, associations have to negotiate several agencies including: the NSW Registry of Co-operatives and Associations; the Department of Gaming and Racing; and the Australian Tax Office. There must be compliance and opportunity costs associated with this, and we would argue that a more streamlined set of processes would be of benefit to the association sector'.