NDIA Accountability Project

Participant and provider experiences of the MyPlace Portal

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Joint Standing Committee on the National

Disability Insurance Scheme

Inquiry into ICT Systems

Joint Standing Committee (JSC) Terms of Reference (ToR):

The Committee is inquiring into the ICT infrastructure employed by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), with particular reference to:

a. participant and provider experiences of the MyPlace Portal; b. the impact of the role of other Government agencies on the ICT infrastructure; c. the appropriateness of the MyPlace Portal and NDIA facing IT systems; d. the impact of ICT infrastructure on the implementation of the NDIS; and e. any other related matters.

National Disability Insurance Agency

Submission

Introduction

What has been achieved? The NDIS is a world-leading, once in a generation, social and economic reform. Based on insurance, not welfare principles, the purpose of the NDIS is to improve economic and social outcomes for Australians with a significant and permanent disability by providing them with reasonable and necessary supports, while allowing them to exercise choice and control. A large number of Australians with a significant and permanent disability are now benefitting from the Scheme. As at 30 June 2018, 183,965 Australians had a plan in place (including children in the ECEI gateway). Of those, 30 per cent (or 54,802) were not previously receiving supports from existing State/Territory or Commonwealth programs. This is a significant achievement in its own right. In 2017-18, the NDIA achieved 90 per cent of its operational target. At the same date, 76 per cent of the Scheme-to-date bilateral estimates were reached. The difference between the operational target and the bilateral estimates reflects the fact that over 20,000 people could not be contacted, did not meet access requirements, or their records were neither provided to the NDIA or were not yet adequate to allow an access decision. A significant financial commitment is being made through the NDIS to these people to improve their outcomes. In the 2017-18 financial year, $7.7 billion was committed to providing reasonable and necessary supports for those with a plan. This constitutes a significant investment in providing participants with the ability to exercise choice and control and to live an ordinary life. These people are now able to choose the services and supports they need, marking an important shift from the block-funding model that existed before the NDIS. Utilisation of those supports stood at 65 per cent, reflecting in part, but not exclusively, the large volume of new participants entering the Scheme and the date at which that occurred. Other factors, including some relating to ICT and the portal may have contributed to the rate of utilisation. Participants, and their families are saying that the NDIS is helping them in many ways. Participants have reported improved outcomes across multiple life domains, with the highest impact felt within the domains of choice and control, daily living activities and health and wellbeing. Those outcomes are reflected in the following statistics:

  • Ninety-one per cent of parents of pre-school aged children are saying that the NDIS has improved their child’s development; 89 per cent say the NDIS has improved their child’s access to specialist services and 82 per cent say the NDIS has increased their child’s ability to communicate what they want.

  • Sixty-nine per cent of families and carers of participants aged 0 to 14 are telling us that the NDIS has improved their ability to help their child develop and learn.

  • For participants aged 25 and over, 71 per cent are saying that the NDIS has helped them with their daily activities and 67 per cent say the NDIS has helped them with choice and control.

  • As evidence of the exercise of choice and control, 24 per cent of participants are either fully or partly self-managing their plan.

  • The NDIS is also helping families and carers of people with disability to be able to work. This is good for them and good for the economy. Of those families and carers of participants aged 15 to 24, 48 per cent are working in a paid job. Of these, 74 per cent are in permanent employment. While it is early days, these are impressive statistics.

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The NDIA is committed to providing participants and their families, carers and providers with a high quality service. The experience of those participating in the Scheme improved by four percentage points in Quarter 4, 2018, with 88 per cent of participants rating their overall experience with the NDIS as either ‘Good’ or ‘Very Good’. While more can and is being done to improve people’s experience with the NDIA, the vast majority are satisfied with their NDIS experience. A vibrant and competitive provider market is integral to supporting participants to achieve choice and control, and their goals. At 30 June 2018, there were a total of 16,755 providers across Australia offering a range of supports, representing a 17 per cent increase on last quarter. These achievements should be acknowledged and celebrated as an affirmation of the intention of the Scheme – empowering people to choose and achieve their goals in inclusive communities and workplaces.

What more needs to be done? While much has been achieved, the roll out of the NDIS remains a work in progress. Lessons have been learned from the speed of the roll-out and the issues that arose in the move from trial to transition on 1 July 2016. The NDIA is now actively working to address these issues. The next section of this paper addresses some of these issues, specifically in relation to ICT.

Improve the quality of the participant experience The overarching and most critical priority for the NDIA is to deliver quality plans to participants that support each individual participant achieve a high quality outcome and to ensure that it is done in a way that makes each participant feel understood and valued. A new general participant pathway has been designed and will be rolled out from October 2018. NDIS participants will have face-to-face planning meetings that deliver easier-to-understand, accessible plans, supported by a consistent, single point of contact. The new pathway was designed with comprehensive input from participants, and was successfully piloted in Victoria with more than 1000 participants. Tailored pathways will also progressively be rolled out. ICT and particularly the participant portal underpins that experience.

Grow a competitive market of providers with innovative supports As the Scheme is rolled out at scale, the well-being of participants requires that there be a vibrant market of safe, quality providers who can supply participants with reasonable and necessary supports at a market price. Again, providing quality ICT interactions is critical to facilitating that growth. The balance of this paper explains the ICT challenges that have faced the NDIA, as well as initiatives that are underway to improve the experience for both participants and providers. While the nature of these challenges should not be underestimated, the NDIA is unequivocally committed to addressing them to ensure that it delivers on its mission to deliver better outcomes for participants.

NDIA ICT Challenges

Quality ICT services are integral to delivering superior outcomes for NDIS participants and providers. But ICT cannot be delivered in isolation from either the Participant and Provider Pathways or the service delivery model. All systems must work in tandem and support each other. This is essential not just because of the impact on the quality of the participant experience, but also because such systems are the basis on which the NDIA allocates resources, and delivers decisions on access, planning, plan funding, provider registration, and other statutory and administrative functions.

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This requires a well-developed and comprehensive ecosystem that works hand in glove and is fit for purpose. The design parameters of the participant and provider pathways must be reflected in the service delivery operating model, which in turn must be underpinned by the ICT platform. In other words, the ICT system does not exist in isolation. There were a number of challenges associated with creating the ecosystem required to support the transition from trial to full scheme. As a consequence, issues emerged with the system in July 2016 at the point that the NDIS moved from trial to transition. As will be explained subsequently in this paper, the NDIS continues to work through the challenges that arose from that period. By way of background, after the passage of enacting legislation, the NDIS trial was launched in 2013, growing to seven trial sites across Australia over a three-year period until 30 June 2016. The trial sites were supported by an interim Siebel based ICT solution provided by the Department of Social Services. During these three years, over 30,000 participants were brought into the Scheme. This was delivered within budget, and with high level participant satisfaction, through a largely individually tailored bottom up planning process. However, with on average only 10,000 participants being brought in each year, the scale was modest relative to expectations at full Scheme. As a result, there were significant potential risks with the NDIA’s ability to scale up rapidly, particularly in relation to ICT, when the Scheme moved from Trial to Transition on 1 July 2016. Three significant changes were made by the NDIA at pace to facilitate that move. All affected the underlying quality of the participant experience and the service delivery model.

  • First, to allow greater scalability, the NDIA’s computer systems were changed from Siebel to a tailored, but minimal viable product (MVP) version of SAP.

  • Second, more standardised First Plans were adopted to get participants into the Scheme more quickly, recognising that such plans would need to be subsequently changed.

  • Third, telephone planning was adopted to expedite the speed of planning. While all of these changes were made with the best of intentions, they had not been stress tested by the NDIA during Trial, nor were they reflected in a comprehensively designed ecosystem that was designed to enhance the participant experience. Difficulties, all of which have been well documented, soon appeared. The earliest and most obvious issue related to the new SAP system, with providers not able to be readily paid. While the immediate issue was expeditiously addressed, it exposed more fundamental systems’ challenges. These included making the participant and provider portal experience more user friendly; increasing the system’s flexibility for the NDIA and for Local Area Coordinators (LACs) to interact and communicate with participants; and producing higher quality and more insightful data for use by management. The refreshed NDIA Board, appointed in January 2017, through engaging with participants, providers and disability organisations, became aware:

  • that the First Plan approach was not always fit for purpose from a participant’s perspective, thereby escalating the number of unscheduled reviews;

  • that telephone planning was not delivering a quality experience for participants;

  • that participants could not easily get their concerns addressed through the call centre; and

  • that providers were under significant pressure both from the difficulties of interacting with the NDIA, as well as from making the transition from block funding to individually funded packages. The refreshed NDIA Board also recognised that the scale, timing and complexity of the Scheme rollout is without parallel. The number of participants in the Scheme would increase almost three fold in the next two years; scheduled reviews would rapidly accelerate because of the number of people in the Scheme; and the number of providers would need to exponentially increase.

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By April 2017, the refreshed NDIA Board recognised the need to fix the participant and provider pathways, as well as the underlying service delivery model and the associated issues to be able to deliver the Scheme at scale, with a commitment to the quality of experience which participants have a right to expect, as well as to ensure the Scheme’s financial sustainability. While recognising that a comprehensive ICT fix needed to follow refinement of the Participant and Provider Pathways, the refreshed NDIA Board and the new management team also undertook the following steps:

  • Fix immediate issues that did not compromise the longer term ICT design
  • Build internal capability
  • Define ICT strategy following the pathways work
  • Deliver new ICT approach Each of the four stages outlined are described in more detail in the following parts of this Submission. To provide context for this subsequent analysis, Table 1 below outlines the stages through which the ICT approach has evolved.

Table 1: Evolution of NDIA ICT approach

Fix immediate issues Notwithstanding that comprehensive work was ongoing to ensure that the NDIA had a participant and provider pathway that met the high expectations to which it aspired, the refreshed NDIA Board and management recognised the need to address significant legacy issues with the participant and provider portals. More specifically, those issues included a lack of appropriate functionality and usability in the immediate period following the move from trial to transition. To that end, significant initiatives have been taken. They include the following:

  • Enhancements to the Provider Finder Tool which have made it easier for participants to find providers and additional information about their location. These changes also improved accessibility through new guided help.

  • Enhancements to the MyPlace Portal for Participants includes interface and accessibility improvements and the ability for participants to receive SMS communications when a provider has changed a service booking. This provides an added level of both security for participants and ensures up to date information is provided to participants in real time.

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  • Enhancements to the MyPlace Portal for Providers introduced new functionality for providers which has created greater flexibility with service bookings. These changes have had a very positive impact on the payment process for providers. A new dashboard for providers has also made it easier for providers to see the participants that they work with and has improved the ease with which information can be accessed.

  • Introduction of Light Touch Plan Reviews has had an impact on the participant experience when simple changes need to be made. NDIA staff can do so in a streamlined way without needing to rebuild the plan.

  • Enhancements to the Pricing Framework to allow Providers to claim for additional services such as travel so they can enhance their service delivery to Participants in remote and very remote areas.

  • SAS visual analytics and SAP Hana Reporting platforms are being piloted and progressively rolled out. This means increased reporting and analytics provide staff with greater ability to make evidence based decisions.

  • Enhancements to ICT Security, the NDIA is continuously improving systems and controls to its ICT platform as the NDIS is implemented across Australia. Enhancements are regularly being made to the NDIS provider portal to facilitate its effectiveness and to further strengthen controls against unscrupulous behaviour.

A program of future improvements has been developed, including:

  • Enhancing the quotation process to make it a simpler for people to quote for Assistive Technology, home modifications, with future application for remote services. This will impact the participant experience by making it more streamlined and simple to access supports and services which require quotes.

  • Enhancing the user interface for participants and providers by understanding the preferences and needs of people with disability and providers, and translating this into improvements in the portal interface.

  • Improved budget view on the portal so participants can clearly see and understand their budgets and know what is committed and drawn down upon.

  • More functionality in the reporting so participants can get better statement information about their supports. This will improve security for participants and make it easier for them to manage their funds. These improvements have enhanced the experience of participants and providers. However, the NDIA acknowledges that continuous improvement is vital to ensure that we are improving the pathway for participants and providers. Over the next 6 months there is a clear schedule of improvement planned, including significant enhancements to the Plan Layout on both the hard copy and screen presentation and the release of an Appointment Tool to allow better scheduling for our participants and partners. Build internal capability In October, 2017, following the appointment of Mr Rob De Luca, the NDIA moved quickly to identify the capability it needed in relation to ICT. To that end it undertook an ICT Capability Review, which resulted in identifying the need for the NDIA deepen its ICT maturity, with deeper ICT expertise. More specifically, by February 2018, the NDIA Board and ICT Committee, under Mr De Luca’s leadership, endorsed and implemented the following recommendations:

  1. Appoint a high calibre Chief Information Officer (CIO). 6 of 11
  1. Build NDIA ICT capabilities in: a. Prioritising investment and portfolio management; b. Executing on projects, including project management, business analysis and change management; and

c. Focusing service and process design on the participant and provider experience. 3. Ensure effective liaison between NDIA business areas and technology providers by: a. Closing organisation gaps between business engagement and technology strategy; b. Effectively managing contracts with all providers; c. Baselining business processes and capability delivered for systems; and d. Streamlining the issue resolution process making it transparent. 4. Develop an agreed and endorsed architecture and roadmap for NDIA technology platforms with constraints understood by stakeholders. More specifically, Mr Ian Frew was appointed as CIO and a member of the Executive Leadership Team. The effectiveness of what has occurred can be seen through an analysis of the four Gateway Reviews, undertaken by the Department of Finance covering the period from Trial through Transition. These reviews are designed to strengthen governance and assurance practices and to assist non-corporate Commonwealth entities to successfully deliver major projects.

Table 2: Gateway Review Outcomes

Date        Gate                                          Rating      No of

Critical

Issues

14-Aug-15    Combined Gate 0 – Business Need and Gate 1 –      Amber           3

Business Case Review

08-Apr-16     Gate 4 – Readiness for Service Review              Amber           6

03-Mar-17     Intermediate Assessment Program Report         Amber/Red         3

22-Jun-18     Gate 4 – Readiness for Service Review            Green/Amber        0

An extract from the 22 June 2018 Executive Summary reads: “The NDIA has a comprehensive and formalised ICT Services Schedule with DHS. Since the previous Gateway Review there has been a significant change-over in the senior leadership of the NIDA including the Chief Information Officer (CIO) who has responsibility to deliver the supporting ICT program. From its interview the Review Team has been impressed by the professional expertise and relevant experience of the new leadership team and has gained confidence that the ICT Solution will be fit for purpose in meeting the objectives of the NDIS”. Establishing core expertise and capability has been an essential step in strengthening the NDIA’s ICT capability.

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Define ICT strategy

Since October 2017, in parallel with the Pathways work, significant work has been undertaken to develop a comprehensive ICT Technology Strategy for the NDIA. The building blocks for this work were based on the following three reviews.

  • NDIA Service Delivery Operating Model Review (January 2018 – March 2018): which provided a comprehensive roadmap for the Service Delivery Operating Model.

  • ICT Health Check (March 2018 – May 2018): which assessed the ongoing suitability of the SAP CRM system for the NDIA. More specifically, the system was assessed against the following the criteria: o Whether it could be upgraded in a sensible, cost effective manner; o Whether the CRM could be cost effectively extended to meet the NDIA’s ongoing business requirement; o Whether the CRM could expose and consume APIs, to integrate into a variety of ecosystems. The conclusion reached was that the SAP CRM system provides a sound basis for future development, and that its functionality can be expanded and exposed to third parties to provide the main plank for the NDIA’s ICT Technology Strategy. Moreover, it concluded that deficiencies have either been fixed or are targeted for correction. The NDIA’s business priorities and ICT Technology Strategy will determine how these deficiencies are prioritised.

  • Shared Services Review with DHS (April 2018-May 2018): which assessed whether the relationship with DHS could be strengthened to allow the NDIA’s service delivery to: o Be transparent; o Be responsive, with appropriate engagement; o Provide appropriate live, weekly and monthly performance reporting against all Service Level Agreements (SLAs). This work, undertaken jointly with DHS, has provided a constructive basis on which to move forward. Based on that work, the NDIA’s ICT Technology Strategy was endorsed by the Board ICT Committee, chaired by Mr Paul O’Sullivan, in August 2018. More specifically, the objective of the ICT Technology Strategy is to provide the basis for investment in technology assets within the NDIA for the next 5+ years in a way that is consistent the NDIA’s overall approach in relation to participants and providers. The strategy outlines the high-level Technology roadmap to allow the NDIA to successfully execute the Corporate Plan and the underlying Business Strategies that will deliver quality outcomes for Participants. The key recommendations of the ICT Technology Strategy, as endorsed, were as follows:

  • The NDIA systems need to be more open, providing support for external third parties to access NDIA capability;

  • The NDIA systems need to be more flexible, providing support for ongoing change in a participant centred fashion;

  • The NDIA systems need to support increased self-sufficiency for the core NDIA constituents (Participants, Providers, Partners and Staff);

  • The SAP solution is a sound and technically sustainable solution on which to base the NDIA systems; and

  • DHS should be retained as the NDIA’s Shared Service provider, with roles and accountabilities more clearly defined.

The current systems’ architecture, based around the SAP CRM, constitutes only one component of an overall technology solution to support participants, providers, partners and staff.

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The results of the functional and technical review of key systems indicated that, with sensible investment, the functional fit of the NDIA’s systems and linkages with the broader ecosystem can be enhanced.

The NDIA’s very high level architecture is defined in Table 3.

Table 3: NDIA High Level ICT Architecture

Deliver new ICT approach The NDIA Board endorsed ICT strategy, based on the reviews outlined above, provides a cohesive roadmap that supports the NDIA’s participant focused strategy that is embedded in its Corporate Plan. It provides a roadmap for the future, which is designed to address the challenges that emerged from trial. In summary these are: The future program delivery has been categorised into three phases as outlined below:

  • Foundation – Improve core systems efficiency and effectiveness;

  • Optimisation – Enrich core systems to reduce manual operations and wherever possible provide support for straight through processing; and

  • Innovation – Build and implement automated tools, machine learning and AI to simplify interaction with participants and providers. A development in this space is the Nadia program, an avatar with human expression who listens to your questions and responds with information about the NDIS. This ground breaking capability forms part of the eMarket strategy but is dependent on the Pathway reform and technology advancements. The NDIA’s initial focus is to primarily address Foundational issues before moving onto Optimisation and Innovation opportunities. Notwithstanding this approach, these phases will not be addressed sequentially. Though the immediate focus will be on the Foundation phase, opportunities to incorporate both Optimisation and Innovation initiatives will be taken where significant benefit is identified, with a particular focus on participants. The NDIA is also preparing strategies for both payments and eMarket. While not complete when the ICT Technology Strategy was developed, sufficient direction was available for the ICT Technology Strategy to encompass the key requirements to meet the objectives of payments and the eMarket strategy teams. The following section of this paper outlines key Foundational initiatives, which are the immediate focus of the NDIA.

Key Foundation Initiatives

The Foundation phase focuses on improving the openness, flexibility and usability of the NDIA systems. The benefit will be seen in both providing enhanced support for participant and provider services and increased efficiency and effectiveness for the NDIA’s internal business operations.

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The key programs that are currently under way in this category are:

(1) NDIA Partners’ Efficiencies – Remote Access and Partner Portal

The NDIA Partner network delivers valuable services to the NDIS, providing the front line contact for participants for the majority of the pre-planning, co-ordination and implementation of plans.

The only ability DHS had at the point of transition to facilitate connectivity was to supply all Partners with a DHS Surface Pro laptop and connect using their Direct Access 2012 capability. In April 2018, the NDIA endorsed the LAC Connectivity project which will allow a Partner to access a Portal with their own devices and negate the need for Partners to have DHS laptops and connect remotely. It is envisaged that the full Partner Portal will be fully deployed in Q2 2019. Notwithstanding this decision, in May 2018, for two weeks and in some cases for longer, Partners experienced a significant deterioration in service levels for pre-existing remote access services. Initial efforts by DHS to alleviate the issue by establishing a new server farm with the latest release of the Microsoft Direct Access software allowed Partners to get back to work, but did not fully correct the issue, which was traced to a defect in Microsoft software. As a consequence, DHS is in the process of replacing the Microsoft product with one from CISCO, the world leader in this form of technology. The CISCO solution commenced internal testing at the end of July 2018, with initial Partner testing starting on the 6 August 2018. To date no issues have been raised and both stability and performance has been in line with expectations. Load will progressively be increased through to the 14 September 2018. If no issues are experienced, the system will commence volume rollout throughout the NDIA and DHS. Development of the Partner Portal has commenced with a series of visits to Partner sites to further enhance an understanding of their ways of working. This information will be combined with the general planning Pathway that is being rolled out to develop a solution that better meets their needs.

(2) User Experience and User Interface Design Review

The MVP delivered with the move from trial to transition focused on delivering the business capability required in the compressed timeframe allowed, with minimal focus on the usability of the system. The NDIA have recently initiated a User Interface/User Experience (UI/UX) Strategic Review with the objective of moving the existing Staff, Provider and Participant Portals to a common “look and feel”. This work, in conjunction with the NDIA Channel Strategy, will transition the NDIA’s existing portals to a modern, enhanced and consistent user experience supported across all digital channels, as well as providing effective operational support to participants, providers, partners and staff. This review will adopt “two speed” design thinking, looking at both quick wins that can be delivered rapidly along with longer term strategic redesign of the existing portals. Deep engagement with Participant, Provider and Partner forums as well as with representative groups will be conducted to ensure a successful outcome. Alignment between this initiative and the broader NDIA focus on the Participant Pathway is expected to provide insight into improved process automation within the NDIA’s business solutions.

(3) Data Analytics

The NDIA is implementing its Data and Business Intelligence Strategy, with the initial rollout of the enhanced operational and analytical reporting currently underway. The initial focus is on the provision of enhanced reporting and data intelligence to staff and partners, enabling improved support for participants and providers. This program will continue to be extended to provide enhanced reporting and data intelligence directly to participants and providers. The critical importance of data to the NDIA has resulted in a strategy of self-sufficiency, with the Scheme Actuary able to define and manage data assets largely independently of DHS.

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This capability will provide support for future initiatives around a data lake, workload optimisation, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

(4) Application Programming Interface (API) Program

The NDIA is committed to providing a set of standard API’s to the market to streamline payment processing as well as to support the development of a marketplace to enable services to be exchanged between providers and participants, while allowing the NDIA to consume APIs to facilitate external innovative solutions. DHS has commenced development of the initial set of API’s with delivery expected to commence over the next 6 months and then be ongoing, based on external market need. In summary As the NDIS moved from trial to transition, significant ICT challenges were experienced by the NDIA that had an adverse impact on participants and providers. Some of those challenges were immediately fixed, while others have been addressed in the intervening period. However, the underlying issues could not be solved in isolation. Work needed first to be done on redefining the Participant and Provider Pathways as a precursor to reassessing the NDIA’s ICT Strategy. That work has now been done, with the pace accelerating following the appointment of the NDIA’s new CEO and new CIO. Along with rolling out the Pathways work, the NDIA is making significant ICT enhancements in a strategic and focussed way for the benefit of participants, providers and partners alike.

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