Disclosure and reporting by providers of residential aged care in Australia: accountability to stakeholders

The Residential Aged Care (RAC) Sector in Australia is significant in terms of the ageing population (consistent with most developed countries), and the fact that it will affect the majority of the population in terms of the need for RAC at some stage in their lives. Having access to information for stakeholders to make informed and timely decisions regarding the comparison of RAC providers is often difficult due to there being higher demand than supply, small timeframe to make decisions with a high emotional content and the difficulty in changing providers. This research will enable RAC providers and their stakeholders to consider the current level of disclosure required and the level of voluntary disclosures providers in the sector choose to disclose, and whether this level of disclosure is adequate for stakeholders to make informed decisions. Information was gathered from the RAC provider's website, reports (annual, financial and social) and other publicly available information, to determine their level of non-financial, financial and social (governance and sustainability) disclosure, over a three year period. It was found that the RAC providers should not just be limited to their legal reporting requirements (mandatory), but instead should also endeavour to disclose additional voluntary information, in order for their stakeholders to make informed decisions. In addressing the Australian RAC Sector's stakeholder information needs, frameworks (RAC Sector Disclosure NFS Framework, Non-Financial RAC Disclosure Value Framework, RAC GPFR Framework, RAC Sector Governance Framework, RAC Sector Governance Principles, the RAC Sector Sustainability Reporting Disclosure, and the RAC Sector Sustainability Elements) were developed for this sector to improve disclosure. In addition, the CARED Scoring System was developed and proposed as a means for the Australian RAC Sector Providers to calculate their level of annual reporting (non-financial, financial and social) disclosed to their stakeholders. This research provides new insights and a basis for further research to determine whether the Australian RAC Sector have improved their consistency and adequacy of their disclosures (non-financial, financial and social) through the use of the proposed CARED Framework and associated frameworks.