Some 160,000 people are set to be removed from the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) in a bid to bring growth down to 2% each year until 2030.
Speaking at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Minister for the NDIS Mark Butler announced that in an effort to reduce the increasing costs of the scheme, a raft of changes would be made including around eligibility.
He said a “reset” of the NDIS budget was required to ensure it was sustainable and available to future generations.
“Over the forward estimate, spending will grow around 2% every year as we reset many of its design features before returning to 5% growth over the medium term from 2030,” Mr Butler said.
Acknowledging such growth was below inflation and an effective cut, he said the measures were required to “return the scheme to its original intent” to support people with significant, permanent disability.
Eligibility
Minister Butler said the government planned to make changes to NDIS eligibility that would reduce participant numbers from the current 760,000 to 600,000 by the end of the decade.
“Australians with lower support needs or higher functional capacity, depending on your perspective, will be moved out of the scheme,” he said.
RELATED: The state of play on Thriving Kids and the role of GPs
If asked if this would likely impact people with autism, he said eligibility would not be specific to a label that a doctor had given them but according to their functional needs.
Unscheduled reassessments
Mr Butler said unplanned reassessments had driven part of the cost blowouts within the scheme. He said the average result of a reassessment was a 20% increase in the value of those plans.
“One in five plans are currently subject to one of these reassessments each year,” he said.
“These cost blowouts simply cannot continue.”
Mr Butler said he would introduce legislation to “get a grip” on this driver of scheme and plan inflation, but did not detail what the legislation would entail.
Social and community participation
Mr Butler said increasing costs of providing social and community participation to NDIS participants had also driven costs up.
“Five years ago just this stream of support cost $4 billion per year, this year it cost $12 billion,” he said.
“If left unchecked the spending is projected to skyrocket to around $20 billion.”
To address this, he said the entire budget for community and social participation would be reset: “This will have a material impact on participant plans, in terms of average actual spend by participants, this will take people back to where they were in 2023.”
The Minister announced $200 million would be set aside for an inclusive communities fund to rebuild capability among community organisations so people have new, meaningful options to participate in their local community.
NDIS providers
In other cost-saving measures Mr Butler moved to protect the NDIS from fraud. He said the scheme had become a target for “shonks and rorters as well as the worst elements of organised crime.”
To address this, mandatory registration requirements would be extended to cover a wider range of providers.
“We don’t need to monitor retail purchases from a chemist the same way we monitor close personal care of vulnerable people, but we will expand categories of mandatory registration to include those higher risk activities,” he said.
Being an NDIS registered provider means an individual or organisation is formally approved by the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission to deliver supports, having passed audits against quality and safety standards.
According to the Commission this reduces risks to participants and the scheme and reduces the risk of fraud.
Thriving Kids
The government previously announced children with autism who have low to moderate support needs would begin to be directed toward Thriving Kids, a new program to be rolled out in collaboration with the states and territories in order to reduce the NDIS budget.
While agreements between the states and territories with the federal government were expected to be the next step in progressing the rollout of the program in October, Mr Butler conceded the federal government was awaiting the Queensland government’s signoff on an agreement.
The minister’s announcements will form part of the federal budget, due to be handed down in May.
Want more news, clinicals, features and guest columns delivered straight to you? Subscribe for free to WA’s only independent magazine for medical practitioners.
Want to submit an article? Email [email protected]