This Progress Report provided our first yearly update on building a world-leading National Disability Insurance Scheme.
The Progress Report benchmarks how we are tracking against the goals and outcomes identified in the National Disability Insurance Agency’s Strategic Plan 2013–2016. The Strategic Plan sets out the Agency’s values, goals and what we expect to achieve over the trial period of the Scheme – from 2013 to 2016.
There have been remarkable achievements in the last 12 months:
- 6434 participants have been found eligible for the Scheme, with 5414 having an approved plan by the end of March 2014.
- The majority of participants are very satisfied, with a satisfaction rating of 1.66 on a scale of -2 (extremely unsatisfied) to +2 (extremely satisfied).
- We have prepared to expand the NDIS trial sites across the whole of ACT, Barkly in the NT and Perth Hills, in WA. These sites join four existing one-year old sites in the Hunter (NSW), Barwon (VIC), South Australia (for children aged13 and under (on 1 July 2014)) and in Tasmania (for young people, aged 15 to 24 years). In addition, we are expanding our footprint by opening a new office in Colac in the Barwon region.
- We have relocated our Head Office, with the Prime Minister, the Hon Tony Abbott, MP, opening the Head Office of the National Disability Insurance Agency in Geelong in April 2014.
- We have recruited over 450 staff – of which almost 11 per cent identify as having a disability. Over 50 per cent of staff in the Agency have identified as having lived experience of disability – which refers to close or personal experience with disability.
- We are continuing to implement major operational improvements to manage Scheme costs. At present costs remain comfortably within the allocated budget - around $107 million of support will flow to participants in 2013/14. This is well within the funding envelope of $152 million for 2013/14. Of course, we still have a significant amount of work to do. There are a number of areas where we need to improve and we are working hard to prioritise and implement these improvements as we go about pursuing our strategic goals, as set out in this Progress Report.
