Pro Bono Australia just published a great article on the NDIS . It claims that, post the independent review by former senior public servant David Tune, many of the scheme’s supposed benefits are yet to be realised.
The Morrison government and its newly appointed Minster for NDIS Stuart Robert (you may remember him from the home internet scandal which, to be fair, he has since repaid to the tune of $38,000 ) have promised to cut red tape, introduce the Participant Service Guarantee to speed up service delivery and increase staff numbers.
The NDIS was originally set up by the Gillard government in 2012 but when the Abbott government took charge the following year, then minister Mitch Fifield capped staff numbers at the NDIA, the agency tasked with implementing the scheme, at 3000 full-time staff. This was despite the Productivity Commission recommending a requirement of 10,000 full-time staff members.
Here at the Vocal Minority we have some personal experience of the NDIS.
We witnessed a local NGO come very close to shutting its doors due to changes in NDIS pricing and were appalled by the very slow response from the NDIA when it was informed of the issue. What’s more, the NDIS’ local area coordinator, who is meant to be a helpful conduit between organisations and the NDIA, wilfully dealt out misinformation for what seemed to be personal reasons only…
Eventually a shutdown was averted by merging with a larger player but not before causing a lot of angst among staff members and a lowering its service delivery standards to the most vulnerable members of our community.
There are many anecdotal stories about long-running NGOs having to shut down and, most importantly, about recipients of the scheme finding it confusing and difficult to access even the most basic services.
Despite all the posturing from the current government, the fact remains that the NDIS underspent by $4.6 billion in the 2018/19 budget . There is a cynical view that rather than deliver on its charter to provide “support that puts people with disability at the centre of decision-making through the principles of reasonable and necessary supports and individual choice and control” it has instead become a way for the current government to spend less on disability services.
David Tune made 29 recommendations to improve the operation of the NDIS. Let’s hope that Stuart Roberts adopts the main points of the review and brings some much-needed certainty to the NDIS process.