The National Rural Women’s Coalition is an alliance that works to remove the barriers between women and power; between centre and periphery; between women’s potential and the opportunity to fulfil it.

Hamilton Stone was commissioned to provide an independent evaluation of how well Muster – NRWC’s flagship leadership program – is helping develop women leaders, supporting NRWC to be a powerful advocate for Australian rural, regional and remote women.

We have had many conversations over the years with older Australians, including those receiving aged care. Hamilton Stone directors Lisa Fenn and Hannah Holland (writing as Ian) have had the tremendous privilege of sharing experiences and reflections arising from these conversations, in Griffith Review volume 68, Getting On. The stories we recount, from many ordinary but extraordinary people, share this volume with pieces penned by some of the best non-fiction writers this country has seen, including Helen Garner and Stella Prize winner Vicki Laveau-Harvie. It is such an amazing opportunity to be published with such wonderful writers.

Play has huge benefits for children, their families, and their communities. However, in today’s busy world playgroups don’t just materialise by magic. Hamilton Stone has been working with Playgroup Australia to help ensure the Australian government recognises the potential for these groups to maintain and build community identity and resilience.

The aged care sector has been on a long journey toward focussing more on the needs and the choices of the people who use it. Hamilton Stone has been intimately involved in some of the key steps along the way, and we are currently helping with the analysis of how allocating residential aged care places to consumers, instead of providers, will work.

Ten months since the Commonwealth initiated its review of the Australian Public Service, the review panel has just released its Priorities for Change report. As part of its in-depth analysis of the issues, it published a paper by Hamilton Stone director Hannah Holland (writing as Ian) and Griffith University researchers Anne Tiernan and Jacob Deem, on how to reform relationships between ministers, their offices and the APS. You can offer your input to the Review between now and 2 May 2019 here.

Hamilton Stone directors Hannah Holland and Lisa Fenn have been talking with Indigenous people, asking them about their aged care journeys and what their information needs might be. We spoke with over 50 older Aboriginal people in places ranging from the urban to the very remote. They were Elders, grandmothers and grandfathers, and members of the Stolen Generation. Some were artists, stockmen, preachers, fisherwomen. What did we hear?

The Queensland Trucking Association has been representing the freight industry for over a hundred years. With momentum building toward significant policy change in the road transport sector, we assisted the Association to develop and communicate its thinking around one of the more controversial aspects of the transport system: toll roads. Read more about the issue here.

We spent a couple of months talking to consumer organisations and to people using aged care services, asking them about how they like to get information, and what's important to them. A very diverse group of people shared their expertise and insights with us, and we summarised our findings in this report, released by the Aged Care Quality Agency.

We love doing consulting work of different kinds, and the most rewarding part is the opportunity to hear the ideas and experiences that people share. When we consult, we always seek to demonstrate that we value people's expertise in their own lives. As we explained to someone who didn't understand why we would pay them for their insights: "it's because you know stuff we don't".

We invited aged care consumers to participate in some consultation sessions this month. The consultations are about how consumers like to receive information about aged care issues, and what information is important to them about aged care quality. It's all part of our latest project, for the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency.

The Aged Care Royal Commission asked for ideas about reform to the aged care system. Based on our experience as analysts of aged care, and as consultants who have listened to many individuals who use the system, we put together a submission on what we thought needed to change. You can read our submission here.

In September 2018, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a Royal Commission into the aged care sector. It came on the eve of the ABC’s Four Corners airing a two-part documentary that outlined some distressing cases of abuse or neglect in residential aged care. As Hamilton Stone directors Hannah (Ian) Holland and Lisa Fenn explain in our article in Australian Ageing Agenda this week, the individual cases will not remain the focus of the Royal Commission. We can expect its attention to move to systemic issues and broad policy questions.

Hamilton Stone director Hannah Holland has just read an excellent review by Tayler Lonsdale of the issues leading to the catastrophic fatal fire in Grenfell Tower in London. It is a well-written and accessible discussion that avoids the understandable vilification of those who have cut regulatory oversight and 'red tape', while still bluntly identifying important process failures. What can we learn?

Hamilton Stone directors Lisa Fenn and Hannah (Ian) Holland were pleased to be involved in the important discussion about costs and funding of child care. Our research, reported in the Canberra Times, showed that cost increases have disproportionately affected low income families while child care workers' pay remains significantly below average.

Six years ago Australia’s artists’ resale royalty scheme was introduced, under which artists receive a percentage of the value of certain resales of their work. Three years ago a Departmental review was commenced. The divided opinions of submitters to the inquiry suggest that the scheme has some issues. We explain why, focussing on the clash between policy theory and complex reality.

There are many different strategies and systems that help customers of social services, as well as the broader community, to find out about quality.  This isn't always simple, though information technology has opened up new options.  But you don't need to go digital to go the experts: consumers. What are the opportunities?