National Cabinet has committed to efforts to reboot the National Disability Insurance Scheme with 10 key initiatives intended to ensure the future of the scheme.
NDIS Minister Bill Shorten MP said the “reboot is making sure every dollar gets through to the people the scheme was designed for, NDIS participants with severe and permanent disabilities”.
“We will work together with people with disability and the sector to implement these initiatives that will improve how the NDIS works for participants, their families and the people who work in the disability sector.”
The initiatives include:
- Investing in better decision-making processes and planner capability for participants with specialised needs
- Moving to less frequent plan reviews where it makes sense and committing to participants that not spending budgets won’t affect future plans
- Improving lifetime planning approach to ensure plans are more transparent and flexible for life events. This includes the flexibility where participants do not need as much support at a stage of life but know that they can receive support as their circumstances change.
- Better supporting participants to manage their plan within budget, including assistance from the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) during the year and holding plan managers, support coordinators and providers to account.
- Partnering with communities to pilot alternative commissioning to improve access to supports in remote and First Nations communities
- Working with participants and providers to trial blended payments to increase incentives for providers to innovate service delivery and achieve outcomes for participants and governments
- Establishing an expert advisory panel to list items to make it easier for participants to access proven evidence-based assistive technology and other supports
- Implementing preferred provider arrangements to leverage buying power of the NDIS
- Strengthening guidelines for planners on support volumes and intensity and providing clear minimum standards of evidence for assistance with daily living
- Cracking down on fraud and non-compliance by funding and developing a business case for a new system to detect, prevent and reduce non-compliant payments.