The National Disability Insurance Agency must match the task and be built to last, says Craig Wallace.
Recently, Senate Estimates heard that the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) was involved in not one, but at least three reviews looking into a range of issues work on the full scheme rollout, work on agency capability and a review of the core and critical functions of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
People are understandably worried about any review of the Scheme we’ve all fought hard to secure, but I welcome robust oversight, scrutiny and transparency. We all should.
This is nation building reform matching the creation of Medicare, the GST implementation, and the introduction of superannuation. It needs to be the best it can be.
We’re all paying for it and we might all need it, so it must be fit for task and built to last.
The NDIS was not about creating some monolithic sacred cow along the lines of the system we are trying to leave behind. It’s about support that’s modern and responsive. To deliver it will require changes for everyone.
First up, it needs an Agency that’s sharp as a tack with shifts for disability services, labour and business as well as empowered purchasers. For the NDIA this has been a very fast reform – what insiders call a “start up” – involving rapid increase in staffing, coming to terms with complex pricing and contracting issues, on top of a move to Geelong.
Given the pressures and timeframes it faces, it’s doing a great job, but, as I said, scrutiny is important. The Agency is not a conventional public sector department tasked with a ‘business as usual’ brief – it has a Board and multiple owners as well as high expectations and a fast tracked timetable with deliverables. It needs to invest in good people, specialist advice, build capacity and be agile and nimble.
Unions are allies of people with disability in many situations, including the current campaign for wage justice for low wage workers in Australian Disability Enterprises. However, other parts of the labour movement are faced with adjustments in attitude and practice by the NDIS. For example, in the Hunter region, some unions appear to be holding out against people with disability who are choosing to leave large institutions and gaining the personal control and choice that the NDIS offers.
This is disappointing. The NDIS puts people with disability at the centre as purchasers. We want the freedom to hire people who can be flexible, leaving behind a ‘clock in, clock off’ mindset. The NDIS will offer opportunities for good staff in the disability workforce but also require modernisation and flexibility. I believe disability organisations and their workforce need to revolve around its customers, not the customers around the staffing establishment.
On the business side, there are players already lining up to provide flexible supports, but we also need agile work to avoid the ‘shonks’. Rolling out lots of money quickly doesn’t just improve outcomes for us, it also changes the supply chain; get it wrong and people’s lives, good industries and services can be wrecked in an instant. We would do well to keep close to the vision of the Productivity Commission which noted the need for disability support organisations to help people to make good decisions. It may be useful for the NDIA to invest in guides for people on how to become canny buyers of quality.
Disability services will need to become more business-like. For one thing, they will need to get to grips with the accounting and liquidity implications of moving from block funded arrangements to invoicing people with disability as customers and managing a balance sheet in arrears. They’ll need to start seeing people with disability at the centre – as customers with options. While I don’t agree with Todd Winther’s pessimistic assessment of the NDIS, the transition from block funding is an area where we need to get down to business with careful work and planning.
Getting down to business is not helped by misinformation, haste or political manoeuvring. The Australian people have given the Abbott Government a mandate to implement the NDIS, get it right, and prioritise full funding. The Prime Minister has said the NDIS was an idea whose time has come and promised unequivocally to deliver the scheme. At a Senate Estimates hearing late last month, Senator Mitch Fifield reiterated that the $22 billion funding envelope for the Scheme had the agreement of the Commonwealth, States and Territories. He said, “That is the funding envelope that I am working within and intend to work within.” This is not language with much wriggle room.
We also need to engage in a mature debate about funding. I agree with former Treasury Secretary Ken Henry’s recent comments on ABC 7:30 that we need to look at our volatile and narrowing revenue base in order to fund a range of social investments.
The NDIS is the right thing to do and an investment worth building. Disability is a slip on a bath mat or a complicated pregnancy away from every Aussie family. People with disability and their families just want it done right. Many of the people I meet at launch sites yearn for practical information about what will happen to them – including how the transition from block funding will be managed. We want facts, not fluff.
The current system is cracking from a shrinking number of carers transferring costs to the public purse. Disability insurance remains the only way and to lift hundreds of thousands of families out of misery and provide peace of mind to all Australians.
Craig Wallace is the President of People with Disability Australia and can be found tweeting as @CraigWtweets.
Read the full story... (off-site)- Topics:
- NDIS
- Author:
- Craig Wallace
- Source:
- Ramp Up Opinion
- Date published:
- Mon 17th Mar, 2014