DSS Payments by Local Government Area in Australia

Department of Social Services provides a machine-readable file containing DSS payments by 2024 Local Government Area (LGA). The data includes privacy protections where cells are rounded to the nearest 5, and zero cells are actual zeros. This dataset is intended for use in National Map and was last updated on 2026-05-15.

Use Cases

• Map the distribution of social service payments across Australian LGAs based on the geographic unit.
• Analyze regional disparities in government benefit allocation based on LGA-level data.
• Assess the impact of privacy rounding on aggregate payment totals based on the described rounding methodology.

Strengths

• Data is provided at the Local Government Area (LGA) level for 2024.
• Includes specific privacy protocols: values rounded to the nearest 5 from December 2022.
• Published under an open CC-BY-2.5 license by the Department of Social Services.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Privacy rounding may cause non-additivity for totals, as described.

Provenance

Source

Department of Social Services

Collection Method

Likely administrative records aggregated and processed for public release.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-15 01:34:07.619897; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia, by Local Government Area (LGA).