Even more exciting news. We had two years of hard work establishing whether we could make an effective contribution to welfare, employment and social policy in Australia. There were a number of long, testing visits to Australia from various members of the teams in UK. At the end of last year, we appointed a senior team in Australia – experts who shared our vision for improving people’s lives – to work on the opportunities under the 2009 ESA tender. And today we were informed we had been successful!

We will be working in three areas – two in Sydney (Eastern Suburbs and St George Sutherland) and in the Hunter, in Keepit. This is really great news for an extensive team of people who have been working tremendously hard to develop these foundations. Now there’s even more hard work to do. As with any tender round there are organizations which have not been successful and we will be working with them on the transition as we move towards opening in July.

We are amongst the first ‘international’ organizations to win business in Australia in the employment market. There has been a fair amount of media coverage in the Australian press. As with any new market we enter – either country or new service area – we know we will be under the spotlight. We have to work exceptionally hard to deliver excellence in our services.

Of course, we have further work to do on broader social policy as well. We learnt much when we first visited Australia. This is true of many countries we have visited and work in as we move global ideas and best practice from country to country. Australia have some advanced work on lone parents and other elements of their welfare model. Equally, they are about to tackle services for customers with health conditions where we can learn from what worked and what didn’t in the UK. Family models are being considered and the German models are very interesting. The process of improving social policies across different governments keeps moving forwards.

As the G20 discuss stability, growth and jobs, the work that needs to be taken forward continues to accelerate. In Australia, we need to get set up, get the doors open and do what we said we would. Meanwhile, our global thinkers will be working on how we tackle poverty, drive job creation, stimulate enterprise, improve skills and education and contribute with our stakeholders and partners to driving growth.