Submission
Supplementary submission to Joint Standing Committee on NDIS July 2020
People With Disabilities WA (PWdWA)
PWdWA is the peak disability consumer organisation representing the rights,
needs, and equity of all Western Australians with a physical, intellectual,
neurological, psychosocial, or sensory disability via individual and systemic
advocacy.
PWdWA is run by and for people with disabilities and aims to advocate for the rights
and, empower the voices of all people with disabilities in Western Australia.
President: Lisa Burnette
Executive Director: Samantha Jenkinson
Website: www.pwdwa.org
Introduction
On 30 June 2020 PWdWA provided a comprehensive report focused on access to
the scheme and the planning experiences of people with disability in WA. That report
is available on the PWdWA website
https://www.pwdwa.org/our_campaigns/our_submissions.html and a short video
highlighting the findings of the report is available on our Youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5zqP0L-5k8 .
This is a short supplementary submission focused on what changes the NDIA made
from COVID19 should stay; and the place of Information, Linkages and Capacity
Building for the future of the NDIS.
1
COVID19 and the NDIS
The impact of COVID19 for people with disability has been huge in terms of
sometimes loss of services, anxiety, difficulty accessing vital services such as
food and medicines, isolation, and essential supplies such as gloves and
gowns being hard to source. We have detailed these in a separate
submission to the inquiry on the impact of COVID19.
There have also been some positive changes which improved aspects of the NDIS
which we believe need to stay. These are:
-
Using the core flexible budget to purchase support coordination if needed
– pre-covid this had to be stipulated in the plan.
-
Participants who plan or agency manage their core budgets can now
spend their core funding flexibly across all four core categories. The
categories do not have clear meaning for many participants and it would
be better to have just the one pool or category of ‘core supports’ but ask
people if they reached outcomes.
-
More flexibility using core funds for transport and low cost Assistive
Technology. Although we believe this new flexibility was still quite
restrictive in what could be purchased it was good to see the digital divide
recognised, and the need for transport cost to be covered. Up to date
phones and laptops/pads/tablets are needed to effectively access
technology and the information and reporting required by the NDIS, let
alone to access services and supports.
-
Plan extensions up to 24 months. These were great for relieving the stress
of people concerned that they would have funding cut in their scheduled
planning meeting, when they may not have had an opportunity to
implement their plan due to lack of support or thin markets. It was also
great for the many people for whom things are going fine and they don’t
nreed any changes.
-
Reviews and minor changes went through quickly. There was more
emphasis on minor changes going through quickly and easily, such as
mmistakes in planning fixed. However we also saw rejections of access
within 24 hour turn arounds where documentation was clearly not read.
2
Other aspects of COVID impact have seen an increased flexibility in the way
people have been supported. For some people this needs to stay as a
telehealth therapy session for example was easier, or getting home delivered
shopping or supplies. Some state block funded services for shopping and
pharmacy assistance should be funded by the NDIA ILC as a service for all
people with disability, not just NDIS participants or DSP recipients.
Information, Linkages and Capacity Building shift to DSS
It was recently announced that the Information, Linkages, and Capacity Building
(ILC) program will now be run by the Department of Social Services instead of the
NDIA.
This has raised a number of questions:
Will the intent of the ILC grants remain the same? Will ILC grant focus be under the
National Disability Strategy and become much broader in scope but with no new
money? Will the NDIA start funding some block funded grants under a new program
for the pre-planning support, peer support, and plan implementation support (eg how
to do self management, employ workers etc) that are still required?
A lot of the focus of the Individual Capacity Building grants has been on peer support
and building the ability of people with disability who are scheme participants to
manage and be successful. This has been very important as LAC Partners and NDIA
staff have not, in our experience, been very good at supporting people to access the
NDIS or implement their plans. Current grants for these type of activities end in
The original Productivity Commission model had a Tier 2 which was meant to
capture the small supports and capacity building required by people with disability
not eligible for Tier 3 funded ongoing supports. This morphed into ILC which has
since morphed into community development type grants. The small amount of
overall funds has resulted in a lot of small projects, but little coordination for
coverage or impact. Meanwhile the people who are not eligible for NDIS but need
some assistance like occasional shopping, cleaning, or home maintenance are
missing out and have deteroriating health and home situations.
3
We would also point out that there is always a cost when these decisions are
made given staff were already employed by the NDIA to monitor and
implement ILC Grants. Will those staff be redployed to DSS? What cost will
be involved in rebranding, changing offices etc?
There does not seem to be any transparency in these decisions and this
again erodes trust in the NDIA and DSS.
In line with our broader recommendations we believe there needs to be input from a
diverse group of people with disability to co-design the ILC programs with input from
a range of experts. The evaluations of ILC Grants should be published and those
that work should be built on rather than having to go through further funding rounds.
Thank you for taking this supplementary submission into consideration.
4