Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, , 6:33:47 to 6:42:36
Overview of mandatory registration for NDIS providers and the introduction of stronger criminal and civil penalties for misconduct.
Topics: Integrity, Law reform
Speakers: Louise Glanville, Natalie Wade, Hon Jenny McAllister, Senator Pauline Hanson, Ellie Whiteaker, Anthea Long, Blair Comley, Speaker 36
Well, how much is it? How much is budget for in the last budget for NDOS for this year? 2526. So Senator.
You're asking for the 2627. Um budget estimate. Ms. Long will provide that now.
Uh so Senator 4627 in the budget, uh, the expenses for the NDIS is 53.7 billion dollars.
53.7 and that's for the 2627. Is that right, Senator? What's your increase? They're going to be by about um projected to 2030.
Uh yes, so sorry. So to 292030, uh, it will be 54.8 billion.
64.
54. 54.8, sorry.
Yeah.
In 2930. Is that and that's those estimates are from the 26-27 budget?
Well, how many have you got um signed up as clients with it at the moment? Is it around about 800,000 clients?
As at 30 June.
Sorry?
As at 30 June, Senator, it's about 782,000. 782. The numbers already uh on the record in the earlier part of today's session.
Um last time you mentioned about the providers too, that you've cut back about 6,000 providers. Um Minister, did the did it was it addressed about the registr registered providers? Because there was only about 25,000 registered providers compared to over 300,000.
So I think your question goes to what do we require providers to be registered? Uh the answer is that historically uh the red the registration requirements were very limited, and we are acting to change that. And so at uh in July this year, mandatory registration for um certain kinds of providers commenced. So it's mandatory for them to become registered. Those are the SIL providers who are the people who do supported in independent living for people, usually with quite complex needs, uh and also what we term the platform providers. So businesses that offer a digital platform for individual workers to register themselves on. Um that's in addition to some of the existing registration classes that are mandatory. From next year, we'll make that list of categories broader again. And we expect that when we completed in the order of 90% of the funds paid through the NDIA will be paid to registered businesses. We agree, I think, that registration is an important part of the integrity architecture of the scheme. It wasn't a feature of the scheme under the Liberals in any substantial way. We're changing that.
Um just think my thought process. Um I've just lost my trying to thought where I want to go with that. Next question. Yeah, so anyway, that's fine. Yeah, thank you.
Okay, great. Thank you. Um I have a couple of questions. Um fraud also. Um for the um Commission, perhaps Ms. Glanville can assist. Um the Parliament, as you are well aware, recently passed um bills to that contain stronger criminal and civil penalties for NDAS providers who are doing the wrong thing. Uh and certainly in the second part of the inquiries into um the NDAS bills that I chaired, we heard about the impacts that that fraud is having on participants but also on other providers who are doing the right thing. Could you talk us through the new penalties and in particular what they mean for the work that you do at the Commission?
I'm very happy to do that, Senator. Thank you for the question. I'll start and I'll ask uh Ms. Wade to um continue with more of the detail. Um really uh very very important for us to play our part as uh in in supporting the scheme and dealing with um fraud generally. Um what we um often see is situations where there uh the practices are terrific and there are great providers, so I want to get that out there on the on the messaging because certainly that's the case, but there are also many that um are not so great and where we have to pay much greater attention to them. Um the way in which we can increase capacity in that way is by the powers that the government has given us. So that's a really important thing in terms of particularly civil penalties and uh other things we can do uh in court that we couldn't previously do. The government uh has recognised um the creation of new offences and different powers that has really assisted us with that. Um and alongside that we have been able to really uplift our practices in that area, and it is uh a feature for this commission that uh we uh not only are continuously improving, but we will show that more publicly uh as we go through the next year, and people can see what we're doing as we communicate more thoroughly. Um there's often lots of different consequences for what we might see. Um Mr. Dardo, of course, has talked about the sort of criminal proceedings. Um I've mentioned civil proceedings earlier, uh, but in terms of practices that are not acceptable and the uplift we've had um in relation to being able to deal with these. Uh, we of course have many opportunities to uh ban people from um the scheme uh to uh do enforcement and compliance in other ways. Um and this has resulted in uh far more um action by the Commission uh probably much more than in. Previous years. That's not a criticism of the earlier years, but there was more of a focus on education and those sorts of things. Now we are very deliberate in our intent to work very thoroughly in the field and to be able to pick up matters that are very troubling to us from the regulatory perspective. I might ask Ms. Wade to give some comments more specifically that might interest you as well.
Thank you. Nanly Raid, Associate Commissioner and Chief Legal Council at the NGIS Commission. So the introduction of the integrity running out is a really important moment for the Commission in terms of ensuring our strengthened posture as the regulator for NJS providers ensuring that the scheme is delivered with integrity and for people with disability. Where a provider offers, agrees or gives an inducement to a person. This is really paramount in terms of the behaviour that we've seen in the market over recent years, including the providers are offering all sorts of inducements to bring people with disabilities some of whom are quite vulnerable to their services, but then failing to provide them with services or quality services. We're also receiving power to be able to lower delegations to ensure that we can have staff making varying and revoking banning orders and anti-promotion orders faster at rural levels throughout the commission. It's really important to acknowledge that the Commission has in recent years received an uplift in its resourcing, which has really strengthened our regulatory capacity to be able to ensure that we are sending signals but also taking action to the marketplace to ensure that it's clear that we want to see quality safe service delivery provided to people with disability. We also have important powers now around misreply protections to ensure that former workers and participants are able to make anonymous disclosures and subject to stronger confidentiality requirements. So these are really important ways, Chair that we're able to now navigate through our work.