Statutory functions and reporting

Functions

The National Disability Insurance Agency’s (NDIA) statutory functions are set out in section 118 of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 (NDIS Act). In summary, the main statutory functions are:

  • delivering the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) so as to, amongst other things, support the independence, and social and economic participation, of people with disability and enable people with disability to exercise choice and control in the pursuit of their goals and the planning and delivery of their supports;
  • managing, and advising and reporting on, the financial sustainability of the NDIS;
  • developing and enhancing the disability sector;
  • building community awareness of disabilities and the social contributors to disabilities;
  • collecting, analysing and exchanging data about disabilities and the supports for people with disability; and
  • undertaking research relating to disabilities, the supports for people with disability and the social contributors to disabilities.

Decision-making powers

The NDIS Act confers decision-making powers in relation to the operation of the NDIS on the CEO of the NDIA. Those decision-making powers include the following broad categories of decisions:

  • access decisions: decisions relating to whether a person does, or does not, meet the access criteria to become a participant in the NDIS, including the revocation of a person’s status as a participant;
  • planning decisions: decisions relating to the approval, suspension and review of participant plans, including approving the reasonable and necessary supports that a participant will receive under the NDIS;
  • information gathering decisions: decisions relating to requests to participants, or any other persons, for information to be provided to the NDIA for the purposes of preparing and reviewing participant plans, for ensuring the integrity of the NDIS and for the recovery of debts;
  • registered provider decisions: decisions relating to the approval and revocation of a person or entity as a registered provider of supports;
  • nominee decisions: decisions relating to the appointment, suspension and cancellation of nominees of participants;
  • compensation decisions: decisions relating to compensation, including requiring a participant or prospective participant to take reasonable action to claim or obtain compensation and taking over the conduct of an action on behalf of a participant or prospective participant; and
  • debt recovery decisions: decisions relating to the recovery of debts from persons who were not entitled to receive payments under the NDIS, including taking action to recover the debt or writing off the debt.

Incidental functions and powers

Like most Australian Government agencies, the NDIA also administers incidental functions and powers, for example, those relating to freedom of information, financial matters and personnel decision-making.

This page current as of
9 September 2020