My Experience with NDIA Services

I am a person who is legally blind. I am an NDIS recipient and I am a self funded retiree. I self manage my NDIS funding.

I am going to relay to you a very small sample of my experiences and what I think should be done to address NDIA culture and structure.

1. Telephone Contact is ridiculously difficult.

Being legally blind, I like using the phone as much as possible because it is easier for me and so often things can just be fixed without delay. The NDIA is not geared up to do that.

It is easy enough to get a person to answer the phone, but the capacity of that person to actually do anything to help is so limited that it makes the actual process pointless. My experience has been that if I have anything more than the most simple and basic of enquiries or if I have a complaint, the front line call takers are not helpful at all. In fact, they often become frustrated at me because I start asking awkward questions, like how long it will take for someone to call me back. You know, the questions that a taxpayer should feel comfortable asking any public servant. My view of the poor staff on the front line is that they are left on an “island” with the only option left open to them being to escalate an email to some unknown entity and hope that somebody actually addresses that email. My experience has been that this has never happened and that I have had to escalate nearly every concern I have had over the past five years through my local MP or submit an AAT appeal or an ombudsman complaint. This is not why I pay taxes and I am sure the general public expects better.

I think a lot of this issue comes down to a stuffy culture amongst more senior back of house NDIA staff. Public servants who do not see their role as being there to assist the public. Imagine being a public servant and thinking that you shouldn’t have to dirty your hands by actually talking to the great unwashed. That is the impression I get anyway.

Too many times, instead of somebody simply looking at the situation and making a logical decision to address that situation on its merits, I have found myself waiting for a call back that never comes, escalating the issue through my local MP and then finding someone who can help me. The problem is that this takes weeks and in the meantime, my life cannot move on because these pettifogging bureaucrats are too caught up in themselves to actually do what they are paid to do. We need more NDIA staff to step up, stop being so self important and start talking to us. I am sure that many want to help, but the culture and this interminable culture of not using the phone for outbound calls is the crux of the issue. That needs to be fixed before any other progress can be made. Please think this over. I am a human being, I want to talk to a human being, not wade through 15 irrelevant and unrealistic FAQs and made up stories about “Steve, the blind man who can fly a magic carpet”. I personally find those stories insulting to those of us who are mere mortals and just want the money to feed their guide dog or get some help cleaning from time to time.

Make all staff available to answer calls when the work falls into their area. This hiding behind a wall of call centre people is not acceptable and it is both inefficient and rude.

2. Local Area Coordinators are a rort.

These privately contracted quasi public servants are in my experience hopeless. I won’t bore you with the details as to why I dropped mine and refused to use them. Suffice to say that they delayed my guide dog funding and nearly stopped me getting a dog because they “forgot” to add one to my

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plan some years ago. Why do we have private contractors who are mainly interested in lining their own pockets there stuffing around in our lives anyway. Mine even rang me on boxing day when I was seven sheets to the wind demanding that I make an appointment for my next plan review one year. The best bit about that one is that I was not using a LAC by then, so I was quite comfortable in politely slurring the words. “Please stop bothering me, you have no right to be contacting me and you have no right to be in my records”. I complained about that incident and was told that the LAC were deemed to be NDIA representatives and had every right to be in my records. I beg to differ, but it was not worth the grief of a privacy complaint.

3. Assistance dogs. In my case, it’s a guide dog.

My guide dog is getting on a bit and I will need to retire him within the period of my next two year plan. The NDIA has no process for allowing this to happen so that I can smoothly transition to my next guide dog. Oh no. Instead, I have to wait until guide dogs have deemed my current dog unfit for duty and then wait for a dog to become available. When and only when that happens will the NDIA allow me to apply for funding for a new dog. It is stressful enough for me and my retiring dog to part ways in a working sense (I am keeping him), without this sort of nonsense. I would have thought that a “PLAN” would allow me to actually plan for the future adn to have all the ducks lined up so that I can simply and easily transition to my new guide dog. Why on earth is that not the case? Frankly when I find myself making up stupid life goals (remember I am retired) that I would rather the planner within the NDIA was more focussed on my actual practical needs and not filling in a stupid form. A form that reminds me more of a work related performance report than it does of anything tangible. I am educated, articulate and I know how to live my life thanks all the same. My attitude is that this is nothing more than a waste of time for me and probably many other people.

It is simply unfair to force me to undergo a review when my guide dog retires. My situation has not changed. The dog’s situation has. If the NDIA can’t see that, then they are really not geared up to do their job.

4. Treating us all the same is not equitable

I do not need to be communicated with like I have an IQ of 75. Communication should be conducted in such a way that it suits the individual, not written as though we are all uneducated numpties. Oh - By the way, I am blind, sending me hard copy letters is a joke, but the NDIA do it and have kept doing it this whole time even though I have complained each and every time about it. I don’t want to have to ask other people to read my mail for me. My PC is geared up to help me.

There is NO way to complain about a LAC. They have no accountability to the participant whatsoever. Look at the above privacy breach and explain to me how a private company can still have access to my personal NDIS data years after I have ditched them and complained about them. That is quite wrong on so many levels.

5. Transport funding is a joke.

Being blind, my biggest issue is mobility. I need to use taxis and Uber alongside public transprot. I get a poultry $102.48 per fortnight for this. There seems to be no recognition that my disability actually does stop me from getting from one place to another easily once a place is out of walking distance. In my case that is about 5km. I have friends who get paid helpers to assist with things and they use these people for lifts. I cn’t do that because I don’t need assistance at that level, but there is no compromise.

6. Too many providers taking too much from the system

Instead of cutting costs to participants, hold providers to account. Stop them from bleeding our budgets dry and stop them from routinely asking for visibility of our plans and budgets. That is not their business. Their business is to provide a service. I am sure nobody would want a car dealer to know their income. I certainly refuse to send them details unless they are pertinent and I won’t use providers who try to milk information about my budget because there can only be one motive for that.

6. Stop treating us like welfare recipients. Stop pitting us against lawyers.

The NDIS is insurance. When I submit my plan, I expect it to be respected and I expect to be treated like I am being honest and not like I am trying to grab every little penny. I certainly won’t do that, but I will argue about stupid rules and ask for alternatives. If we are treated with dignity and respect, it will work better. If I ask for money, I need it. If there is some doubt, I will supply proof. My guide dog picked up a food allergy and he had to have his diet changed. That put his bills up by about $1300 per annum. I ended up in the AAT over that. I had all the evidence and as I said in there. We don’t need lawyers up against us on the other side of these things. We need someone with half a brain and a calculator. A $50,000 investment in a guide dog is definitely worth spending an extra $1300 per annum on for six of seven years as opposed to replacing the dog. In th end teh NDIA had to compensate me $4,000. Money I did not ask for by the way. Plus they had to pay their lawyer and they ended up paying the extra money. That is simply ridiculous.

Why not have an Authorised Review Officer system like Centrelink or a review panel for disputed issues? Once again, my view of the NDIA is that they misuse the AAT process to avoid making real life decisions and to complicate and slow the process in the hope participants will give up. Well not me mate. I hate bureaucracy for the sake of keeping people in jobs. I want people there who will step up and help.