The NDIS Review has been undertaken in order to look at the design, operations, and sustainability of the NDIS.
The main goals of the review are to:
1. Improve the quality of the system
2. Make the NDIS more sustainable for the long-term future of its participants.
Chaired by Professor Bruce Bonyhady AM and Ms Lisa Paul AO PSM, the NDIS Review looks at the design, operations, and sustainability of the NDIS. This is the most significant review of the NDIS since its inception, paving the way for an improved NDIS, NDIS 2.0. It will look at ways to make the market and workforce more responsive, supportive, and sustainable whilst putting people with disability back at the centre of the NDIS.
On Wednesday 6 September, Bruce Bonyhady gave an update on the progress of the review. Follow this LINK for a full transcript of the speech.
Professor Bonyhady outlined ten big reform directions:
1. Community-wide foundational supports.
Since the introduction of the NDIS, both state and local governments (and other federal agencies) have not fulfilled their obligations to support people with disabilities, instead leaving it to the NDIS. These are the supports that people with disability should be able to access in an inclusive society.
For community-wide foundational supports to work effectively, the following key points need to be addressed:
– Community supports must be rolled out nationally to secure the fairness, trust, and sustainability of the Scheme.
– Allied to this, mainstream services – health, education, housing – must become universal services and meet their obligations to all people with disability.
– At the same time, these systems and the NDIA must work much more closely, so that the NDIS is not an island.
– The establishment of a new inter-governmental agreement between the Commonwealth and States and Territories, with responsibilities clearly set out through multilateral and bilateral agreements.
2. Participant experience, which is central to our Terms of Reference
The Scheme needs to become more person-centered and respond better to intersectional disadvantage.
For instance, we need to improve outcomes for participants from First Nations, including those living in remote communities, and culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
We also need to take gender into closer consideration and better understand and support participants with complex needs through initiatives such as supported decision-making.
3. Access to the Scheme
The assessment of access to the Scheme should be based primarily on significant functional impairments – and not a purely medical or diagnostic approach.
4. Definition of reasonable and necessary supports
This needs to be clear, fair, and consistent.
5. Early childhood
Children with developmental concerns and delays should be identified as early as possible in mainstream settings and early intervention needs to be based on best-practice evidence and principles.
We want to maximise the benefits of early intervention and give children and their families every opportunity to lead ordinary lives in their communities.
6. Home and living
Reforms in this area need to focus on current and future housing needs.
Inclusive Housing Australia are always thinking about ways to ensure that decisions about housing and living are more consistent and provide more certainty to participants.
There is also a need to better utilise staff while delivering more individualised solutions to participants.
7. Confusion between different groups and roles in the Scheme
There is a need for more defined roles and responsibilities of Intermediaries in order to close the gaps between support coordinators, Local Area Coordinators, complex case managers, community connectors, and plan managers.
There is also confusion about whether these roles are agents of the participant or the Scheme.
8. Direction concerns of the NDIS market.
The market is not delivering enough of the right supports in the right locations, let alone creating value or innovation.
The Panel believes that government needs to step in and steward the market, giving participants a greater say in how the market and services are shaped.
9. Workforce
Here, the bottom line is that positive outcomes from the NDIS depend on a diverse, well-trained, engaged workforce, working with people with disability.
10. Quality and safeguards
We need proportionate regulation and we need a better quality and safeguards framework – and those regulations and that framework need to be updated and expanded to include foundational supports as well as the NDIS.
There also needs to be better information sharing between regulators – and much more work needs to be done to build developmental safeguards.
Conclusion
The areas for reform are not surprising. Many of the reform directions are already recognised as long-term issues in the Scheme such as the definition of reasonable and necessary supports and the roles of intermediaries such as Support Coordinators in the NDIS planning process.
We continue to look forward to the outcomes of the review and improved outcomes for people with disability.
Mark Lawler
CEO, Inclusive Housing Australia