At the Darwin Community Legal Centre, the staff are concerned about what’s to come for some of the most vulnerable people in the Territory. Jessica Brugmans, the senior advocate at the centre’s Seniors and Disability Rights Service, says that over the past 12 months there has been a “general trend of substantial cuts to funding” in National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) plans.
Often, those cuts have come in “ways that aren’t easily linked to an event or change in available evidence”. It has forced people to move out of their accomodation and seen them become increasingly isolated due to reduced staff to participant ratios.
In Alice Springs, the chief executive of the Disability Advocacy Service, Adrian Scholtes, says the service is also receiving increased reports of reductions to plans. “This started for DAS around October and … continues at this stage,” he says.
NDIS participants have their funding packages reviewed from time to time and, as the agency that runs the scheme often says, funding can go up or down.
But across the country, participants are increasingly complaining that their packages are going down, not up. As Guardian Australia has reported, the number of legal appeals has skyrocketed, so much so that advocacy organisations are unable to take new clients.
The problem has been labelled a “crisis” by NT-based legal groups in a recent letter to the federal government pleading for more funding. Indeed, it is in the Northern Territory where the national disability insurance agency’s apparent shift in approach is having a disproportionate effect.
New data provided to a parliamentary committee shows that in the NT, half (51%) of all NDIS participants who had their plan reviewed in the last six months of 2021 had their plan cut by more than 5%. The same measure in other jurisdictions comes in at about a third.
The figures showed that of the other reviews in the NT, 17% saw the funding stay within 5% of the original plan, and 32% of the time it increased by 5% or more.
While the NDIA data only measures the proportion of plans cut by more than 5%, Brugman says some of the centre’s clients are facing funding reductions of 20%, 50% or 60%.
One NDIS provider in the territory, meanwhile, says 95% of its participants had seen cuts to their plans in the past 12 months. Another provider working in remote communities reports cuts to transport budgets, meals and support work services.
In some cases, those cuts are coming as a shock. Brugmans claims sometimes participants are not getting to have a full discussion with an NDIA representative about their needs. Instead, there is a “quick phone call”, and then the new plan comes back reduced.
When advocates like Brugmans follow up, she says the agency gives reasons like that the supports requested are not “value for money” – citing section 34(1)(c) of the NDIS Act – or that they’re a “parental responsibility under the NDIS Act”.
“The NDIA has also cited the financial sustainability of the Scheme in outcome letters,” Brugmans says.
The government insists there is no edict to reduce funding packages. An NDIA spokesperson says that the 51% of reduced plans in the Northern Territory related to 1,232 plan reviews, compared to some 72,000 in NSW over the same period. It was “therefore based [on] a proportionally low count of plan reviews, and overall participants, when compared to other jurisdictions”.
The Northern Territory
There are 4,587 NDIS participants in the Northern Territory, a fraction of the 500,000 across the country. The demographics are very different: 41% live in a remote area (Alice Springs and Katherine are considered remote); 50% are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
The cost of providing services in the NT is higher than other areas, meaning NDIS participants in the territory generally have larger budgets than the national average.
At the same, participants in some parts of the NT are far less likely to use their funding, due to an issue known as “thin markets”, which is essentially a lack of available services.
“People are not spending what’s in their package, so when the review comes around [it’s cut],” says June Riemer, the deputy executive officer at First Peoples Disability Network. “This is how the system works… ‘You obviously don’t need $10,000 in transport because you’ve only spent $2,000’. But no one is looking at the systemic issues.”
What this means, in effect, says Riemer, is that the government is saving money from participants who are not able to access the services they need in their communities. The NDIA, however, denies that plan decisions are based “on utilisation in previous plans”.
Robyne Burridge, the NT’s Senior Australian of the Year for her work as a disability advocate, says incentives are needed to attract people to work in remote areas.
“It’s so difficult to get services out there,” says Burridge.
Where the services are available, participants and their families may face a language barrier, adds Brugmans.
Independent living
Lawson Broad is the chief executive of Somerville Community Services, which provides supported independent living (Sil) services in Darwin, Katherine and Alice Springs.
Sil packages are generally the most expensive in the NDIS because they provide significant help throughout the day, seven days a week, including overnight support. Many, though not all, Sil participants have an intellectual disability.
Broad says 95% of his 65 Sil participants have seen their funding cut in the past 12 months. About 80% of those participants are First Nations people from remote communities who have moved to larger population centres to get those services.
“The average cuts are over 10% but we are seeing cuts over 25% for some participants,” Broad says. “This means that less disability support workers are being funded to assist someone to live as independently as possible.”
Participants are seeing staff to participant ratios cut, while overnight support is being changed to “sleepover shifts”, he says.
Mick Fallon, the NT manager at provider peak body National Disability Services, notes there can “good reasons” why a plan is reduced.
“They may have received really good support which means support needs reduce over time,” he says. “But there are plenty of people for whom disability becomes a greater concern as they age.”
At the pointy end, Brugmans says the impact of cuts to Sil packages can be dramatic. “A person may have to move out of their current Sil accommodation because new supports may not reflect the support ratios of that house,” she says.
In other cases, people can become “increasingly isolated as the new, insufficient levels of support do not allow for community participation”.
“A person may have to consider hospital admission to ensure their safety, as the NDIS plan does not provide appropriate, safe, levels of care.”
The NDIA spokesperson says average annualised plan budgets for NT Sil participants had increased by “58% for those participants who were on their third plan and 29% for those on their fourth plan”.
That was from 1 July 2017 to 30 June 2021, covering the period before many services had started to report cuts to packages.
