5 Questions we wished they asked : the NDIA Planning Discussion Paper
By Sara Gingold , DSC
Late last year , the NDIA released their vision for a complete transformation of the NDIS planning process and asked us all for feedback . The proposed changes are outlined in the Planning Policy for Personalised Budgets and Plan Flexibility community consultation paper , which we covered in a previous article . At the risk of sounding overly dramatic , if these proposals become policy , they could fundamentally alter the NDIS as we know it . * Cue climactic music *
The deadline for submissions , 10 am on the 23rd of February , is fast approaching . With past discussion papers , DSC has tried to contribute to the public discourse with articles that address the questions the NDIA put to the community . The problem this time is that the questions are , well , pretty cringeworthy . For the most part , they completely side-step the integral issues at the heart of the paper . Instead of asking us the rather obvious question of whether we think what they are proposing is a good idea , we are treated to gems like this :
“ How can we best support participants to transition to this new planning model ?”
Kind of manipulative , right ?
However , submissions do NOT have to stick to these questions . The NDIA says they “ welcome any feedback on the policy as it is outlined in this paper .” Therefore , it is officially open season .
To help fuel your thoughts , we jotted down some questions we wish they had asked .
QUESTION 1 : WHAT DO PARTICIPANTS WANT TO GET OUT OF PLANNING MEETINGS ?
Call me naïve , but if you want to re-design the planning process , this seems like a good question to kick things off .
The paper proposes the following process : people will receive a draft plan before their meetings . Drafts can only be altered for supports like SDA , home modifications or assistive technology or if the participant has complex support needs . Consequently , under the proposed model , the planning meeting itself would usually have no bearing on the overall plan budget . Instead , meetings would more closely resemble what we now consider plan implementation meetings , an opportunity for participants to discuss how they can spend their funds and what mainstream supports they can access .
Plan implementation discussions can be incredibly useful , particularly for participants new to the Scheme . But is this what participants primarily want out of planning meetings ? If you don ’ t ask , you won ’ t know , but here ’ s an educated guess : people value planning meetings as an opportunity to argue their case , explain their circumstances and connect on a human level with the person who is about to make decisions which will seriously impact their life . Very often , battles do not arise because everybody enters the meeting in a spirit of collaboration . Just in case something does go wrong , however , we have to give people the opportunity to stand up for what they are entitled to . And let ’ s be real ; we don ’ t actually need to choose between a plan implementation meeting and a funding negotiation .
As the famous saying goes :
QUESTION 2 : IT ’ S THE MULTI- BILLION-DOLLAR QUESTION ; CAN THE RESULTS OF AN INDEPENDENT ASSESSMENT BE USED TO DETERMINE SOMEONE ’ S FUNDING ?
We ’ ve discussed the potential benefits and pitfalls of IAs to death on DSC ’ s Resource Hub , so there is probably no point in covering old ground . However , a crucial piece of information that ’ s missing from the consultation papers is how the NDIA plans to transform standardised test results into individualised plans , especially plans that take into account individual contexts , goals and all the complexities that come along with everyday life .
The bleakest proposition is that assessment scores will numerically correlate to specific levels of funding . We want to be absolutely clear : we have no evidence that this is what the NDIA has in mind . However , the Agency has also failed to present an alternative model that connects the assessments to funding .
When IAs were first announced , I imagined they would be just one piece of evidence that informs planning outcomes in the same way that practitioner and provider reports currently are . However , this model would still rely on planners
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