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Background
The disability sector in Australia has been the subject of national and international discussion for several years, with calls for a consistent, nation-wide approach to funding to address the wide variations in availability of funded disability support. Before July 2016, Australian citizens living with a disability generally received funding from individual State government departments, allocated primarily under an outputs-based framework known as “block funding”, or in some cases small-scale, State-run individualised funding programmes (discussed later in this paper). Under the more common “block funding” arrangement, pre-determined amounts of funding from finitely resourced, State-run systems were given to service providers in exchange for support services, often leading to a lack of individualised support, a shortfall of funding for the clients with the most complex needs and large number of unfunded clients.
In 2011, following many years of advocacy and lobbying by parents and carers, self-advocates, community groups, service providers and peak body organisations such as National Disability Services, a research-based enquiry into the disability support system in Australia conducted by the Productivity Commission (an independent advisory body to the government on social, environmental and economic policy) uncovered several issues with the existing system, highlighting how unfair, underfunded and inefficient it was. The report recommended the introduction of a nation-wide insurance model for people with disabilities—the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)—a generational reform intended to give individuals with disabilities across Australia choice and control over their lives (Productivity Commission, 2011). The current paper seeks to describe the NDIS and illustrate the ways research can contribute to and support the disability sector throughout its implementation.
The NDIS seeks to establish a disability support scheme based on entitlement and equality. That is, everyone who has a disability is equally entitled to access funding to have their disability support needs met. Following the release of the Productivity Commission report in 2011, some States attempted to introduce more individualised, person-centred methods of funding allocation. In Queensland, for example, this took the form of a project entitled “Your Life Your Choice” (YLYC), and allowed people with disabilities greater choice and control over their support services (Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services, 2017). Whilst schemes such as YLYC were a step towards choice and control for Australian citizens with disabilities,...