NDIS planning function and provider registration | External submission

futuresUPFRONT PO Box 882Marrickville NSW 1475

ABN 92 105 980 924

Committee Secretary

Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs

PO Box 6100

Parliament House

Canberra ACT 2600

Australia

community.affairs.sen@aph.gov.au

January 2013

Subject: NDIS Legislation

Dear Sir, Madam

Please find below my brief submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs in relation to your inquiry in to the introduction of legislation for the NDIS.

If there is anything unclear or ambiguous in this submission, please feel free to contact me

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the shaping of this legislation.

Yours sincerely

Barbel Winter

Managing Director

futures UPFRONT

NDIS Legislation Submission

This submission focuses on two issues only: one related to the planning function within the NDIS and the other related to the registration of providers. I believe that unless these two issues are addressed, the NDIS will fail in delivering the anticipated outcomes for people with disability and their families, and it will fail to provide an insurance based scheme that is strength based and built on people’s abilities.

Chapter3, Part 2, Devision1

It is critical for the success for the NDIS to legislate that the planning functions needs to be separate from the fund allocation and management functions, It is critical, because, as the current failed systems shows, planning currently being undertaken by fund holders in the main disability services, overwhelmingly fails to focus on people’s dreams, aspirations and abilities. Instead it is confined to a limited range of what is possible within the funding parameters and the limited options made available by the provider. If the NDIA had a role in fund holding, fund allocation and planning, my concern is that those plans would always be written in a paradigm of funding scarcity rather than of the unlimited potential of humans. Therefore, especially over time, the NDIA would simply be reduced to an agency managing limited resources. I would encourage the focus of the principles around planning to be on what might be possible and what could be achieved. The success of a NDIS is predicated on people building and accessing natural supports and on building connections to individuals and communities that are based on mutual exchange. Any plan therefore needs to be bigger than the available funding and needs to expand beyond supports provided through disability services.

Of particular concern is Principle K, as it appears to limit coordination, and by extension funding, to being used only for disability services only. I am certain that this is not the intention of the NDIS.

Chapter3, Part 2, Division3

In line with the arguments made above, I would strongly urge you to consider that the Agency should NOT have any role in the management of funds nor the development of people’s plan.

Chapter4, Part 3

My experience in Australia with self – managed and other related initiatives, as well as similar initiatives overseas, have shown that people will, over time, make increasing use of ‘mainstream’ supports and opportunities available to everyone in the community. People will increasingly use their resources to participate in the social and economic life of the community.

Concurrently, people with disability are one of the most marginalized groups of people within the community and are particularly vulnerable to abuse and neglect. Ironically much of that abuse and neglect has occurred in the very system set up to protect people with disability. I would argue, therefore, that any legislation dealing with the registration of providers needs to balance on the one hand the need to safeguard and on the other hand the absolute desire and right of people at access services and supports through a variety of systems, including ‘mainstream’ community.

My own experiences with disability services legislation and various quality improvement and assurance schemes have shown me that while there seem to be some benefit (mainly in terms of policies and procedures, there are also significant disadvantages. The typically over bureaucratic management of those schemes and overly onerous requirements for compliance with a focus on compliance and service quality not on outcomes that people would want, have led to significant restrictions in how services are delivered and supports can be accessed. This has direct and negative impacts on people’s lives.

A blanket rule that all agencies and individuals delivering services and supports under the NDIS needs to be balanced with the need to safeguard people with disability and also to protect the public interest against potential fraud. The notion that, for example, a local gym needs to be registered before a person can use NDIS funding to attend that gym flies in the face of what people with disability hope the NDIS will deliver.

My suggestion is to create legislation that simultaneously enables people to exercise choice and control, while safeguarding their rights. One way this might be possible is by introducing rules that set levels of registration in line with levels of support received and the complexity of supports provided. This could mean that a local gym would need no registration, while an organisation providing supports to tube feed a person three times a day would need a more intensive registration process. Critical in this context is the activity and the level of support required rather than the level of disability of a person.

Chapter4, Part 3, 70(3)

The wording used here reads as though the legislation is suggestion programs (class of supports) and more worrying class of people (meaning programs for specific groups of people).

I would strongly urge that any legislation or instrument is based on the complexity or intensity of supports provided, rather than the kind of program it runs or the kind of people it serves.

Recommendations:

I recommend that the Committee make the following recommendations:

The Agency will NOT be responsible for all three functions of allocating funds, holding funds and undertaking planning.
Develop planning principles that are focused on people’s abilities, strengths and dreams – that is, on more than simply the amount of funding available.
Allow for some supports and services to be purchased from non- registered providers. Rules can be developed where various levels of registration is needed only for services and supports that are complex or intense.