Queensland Updates

Queensland Productivity Commission

Inquiry into Queensland NDIS market

The NDIS has led to a range of positive outcomes...

The NDIS began in Queensland in 2016. It now has nearly 79,000 Queensland participants and over 5,000 active registered providers. There is widespread support for the NDIS amongst stakeholders. The NDIS has substantially increased the funding for disability services in Queensland, and provided participants with greater choice and control over their lives. Participants now choose who provides them with the disability services they receive. The scheme is also improving participants’ daily lives, relationships and social participation. However, the scheme is still developing, and some areas—such as employment, learning and accommodation—may need more time and a stronger focus to produce better outcomes for participants. The NDIS tries to balance many objectives— on the one hand, to provide choice and control and build participant capacity, while, on the other, to provide consumer protections, limit supports to those that are reasonable and necessary and maintain the financial sustainability of the scheme. This has led to an extensive regulatory and policy framework. The NDIS is governed by over 1,400 pages of legislation, regulation, operational guidelines and policies, administered by two specialist agencies with over 4,000 staff and oversight by a council of Australian, state and territory government ministers. The regulatory and policy framework: • is large and overly complex • is cumbersome and can be slow to respond • is insufficiently flexible and, in some cases, creates inequitable outcomes and inconsistent incentives

• creates a large and sometimes disproportionate regulatory burden • introduces high policy and regulatory risk for providers • provides insufficient information and constrains market mechanisms. This reduces the ability of the NDIS to reach its full potential and achieve better outcomes for participants. The process for planning, goal setting and procuring supports is challenging—over 40 per cent of Queensland participants use less than half of their plan budgets.

Proposed Reform Actions

Realign participant, provider and agency incentives to deliver market outcomes consistent with scheme objectives Increase the availability of information and, if necessary, supports to allow better decisionmaking Simplify processes and reduce compliance burden to decrease costs and inefficiencies Provide greater flexibility, remove restrictions to allow participants, providers, agencies to operate more effectively and efficiently Improve the governance of the scheme to support oversight of performance monitoring and the focus on scheme objectives https://www.qpc.qld.gov.au/inquiries/ndis/