Capability and Culture

On arriving at NDIA and after coming from a central APS agency where policy and governance were important and also pride in the APS, I was surprised at the lack of knowledge on many senior executives part of what it meant to be a member of the APS and abide by its rules and values. Most people in the Agency either knew insurance or disability but didn’t seem to have an agreed understanding of what NDIA stood for or what the Productivity Commission report said about the Agency and the Scheme.

I still believe that the Productivity Commission report was correct about how to setup the NDIA and how the NDIS should work. I also still believe that if the Agency had adhered to the advice provided in how it needed to be setup, then a majority of issues such as planning and issues management could have been averted.

NDIA required a certain capability in the Agency but it is mostly capability which existed elsewhere in the APS. NDIA should just focus on people with a disability and how to give them choice and control. I believe that there was a golden opportunity with NDIA to demonstrate how to have an agency that has no corporate services but just focuses in its core work. There was an opportunity for NDIA to be an exemplar to many other agencies.

However this means that the APS needs to work together to provide its best staff. Anyone in NDIA should have been the A team. Instead NDIA was seen as a place to get a promotion or a pay rise. It did not know what capability or skills it required. When I read the horror stories about NDIS plans, I am not surprised. When the Administrative Appeals Tribunal is overloaded with NDIS cases, it was predictable. I met with planners and I was surprised at their lack of knowledge of the diversity of issues people with a disability experience with one disability stream such as Downs Syndrome let alone across disabilities.

However one capability lacking was the reality of the discussion around strategic planning and following this through with operational planning The reality is there is only so much money to support the scheme so do the responsible thing and plan within budget, and plan an NPP if more required, but this continual news headline of needing more finances with a blowout on an exponential curve is bad planning within the parameters you are given. There are plenty of good examples across the APS but NDIA doesn’t have the capability.

I’d also question the actuarial advice which the agency relied on too heavily.

I would also promote much more data mining across the world as an input to any future planning. The capability I witnessed was amateur and really needed the likes of Data61 as an example to do this. I dont even think the Executive appreciated the rich information that this ápproach could provide.

Privacy and Security are also key to people’s rights. I found the agency had little understanding of this and really didn’t understand the difference While NDIA, in the time I was there, was not obliged to comply with the ASD security controls, they should have been mandatory from the start. I was constantly dealing with “files” being sent to external contract firms etc with no security considered. It was a clear breach anywhere else but NDIA considered security the least of their worries. As for privacy, I was often upset about the lack of respect of people with a disability and their right to privacy. I was told too many stories about the Agency’s clients that demonstrated little respect for their privacy.

Governance was a huge issue with questionable Australian Institute Company Directors (AICD skills at the Board level and in terms of the Executive, no comprehensive agreed understanding of

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to govern the scheme and the Agency. Again a capability that exists and I would consider exemplary elsewhere in the APS.

The Risks to the scheme have all been realised since 2016 which in itself says that the Board and Executive didn’t know how to identify and manage risk. Again I know many SES in the APS who are good at this.

One capability mentioned in my letter of introduction is the ability to understand the need for standardised processes and the mapping of processes across the organisation for everyone’s benefit. This is vital when discussing business analysis and issues within the agency and IT systems. No one had this capability and it is a cause of many issues within the agency and how they do their work.

Understanding that there is a way to behave and do your role in the APS and knowing the difference between the private sector and the public sector is important. NDIA didn’t have this expertise. I was pushed so many times to do something questionable that in the last nine months of my job, I had KPMG audit or witness everything I did as the Agency paid out $20 million to providers with no audit trail. I have never been as compromised as I have there.

I understand NDIA is implementing their own systems against all direction in how NDIA was to be setup. What Public Servant has the right to make this decision at a multi-million dollar cost to taxpayers? They are not using DHS corporate services. I don’t understand how NDIA has this authority. They should focus on disability.

All these poor skills lead to a poor culture in NDIA. I don’t know what else to say but APS values were not present. I am used to working in a place that works on its culture and pulls people up who don’t abide by the values. As things got worse at NDIA after the scheme was implemented, the tension was worse and the blame game commenced.

In a cultural sense, one thing I learnt at NDIA was the hierarchy of disabilities and that those with an intellectual disability are at the bottom, even though they are 75% approximately of those in the scheme. I was shocked and felt that it was a cultural issue that should be addressed. People with an intellectual disability should be included at all levels so that they are fairly represented. I think we’ve seen evidence of treating those with an intellectual disability in one of the current Royal Commissions.

This lack of understanding of the whole Disability community lead to many issues with the planning process. A considered effort is required to address this.

I also feel that you don’t need to use your relationship with disabled people to “prove” you understand disability. Having a physical disability does not give you experience with those with an intellectual disability. It was an aspect of the culture at NDIA that I didn’t like. They needed my professional expertise and an absolute assurance that I respect all people and treat them equally.

Impact on people with a disability

Employment

Employ and educate those with a disability to improve their business skills. But just employing people with a disability is not the answer. You need all senior people with or without a disability from an EL1, EL2 and all SES to have the right skills to get NDIA and NDIS back on track. Staff in the Agency need more education as to what governance, risk, working in the APS, business

Improving Education and Training Opportunities

processes (as an example) and leadership mean. Education and Training needs to be focused on this for people with a disability to ensure that more people with a disability can become Executives and Board members. Those without a disability would benefit from this approach. What a great idea if NDIA was a training ground for more people with a disability to become executives across all the APS. Why should they be mostly limited to just working in NDIA?

It is clear that the NDIA’s lack of performance has had a large and unnecessary impact on people with a disability who are part of the scheme. The Agency has created a large behemoth with poor performance and lack of outcomes according to what it was setup for. The outsourced planning function through Local Area co-ordinators has not worked and needs to be addressed. I think it is mainly due to poor management, poor measurement of outcomes and lack of being a real part of an APS agency.

Enough data should have been collected by now to understand all disabilities and the severity of the disability so that the plan developed for any person should be within guidelines and be an appropriate plan for the person to have a good life. The stories in the press each week should be the exception – not the rule and kept to the minimum due to the powerful data available.

I have also been concerned that NDIA has created a whole new industry for providing care to those with a disability. There appears to be not enough governance and successful control over the industry. It should be no different to medical care. Is everyone appropriately qualified and trained to do their job and does an audit demonstrate it is working. The reality is everyone is spending tax payers money and this industry has become a for profit industry with no benefit to the person with a disability.

I will finish my submission here as there is too much to say. NDIA is a poor performing agency and while the solution will take years to enact, a clear plan needs to be developed to achieve this.

An excellent approach is to use the 360 degree view of NDIA or Balanced Scorecard and prepare a plan to assess where we are now and where we want to be across:

• Clients – People with a Disability
• Service delivery
• People who work in the Agency and associated contracts
• Business Processes
• Finance
• Governance

Thank you so much for the opportunity to provide a submission to this Joint Standing Committee