Here are some of the questions keeping the NDS Helpdesk team busy over the past month.

Registering SDA

We've been told that the NDIA is taking the full 28 days to register homes. Also, that, until the home has been registered for SDA, clients cannot move into it or even visit it as part of their transition?

Before a dwelling can be enrolled with the NDIA, SDA providers must be registered with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission. NDS understands that the NDIA aims to process SDA enrolments within 28 days of receiving a complete and correct application. However, we have also heard anecdotally that there have been delays with some applications.

Under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (Specialist Disability Accommodation) Rules 2020, accommodation must be enrolled as an SDA dwelling before SDA payments can be claimed from the participant. If someone lives at a property before enrolment is completed, SDA cannot be claimed retrospectively.

The rules do not say that a prospective resident cannot visit a property before its enrolment has been completed.

Agreements in providing SDA

An advocate for an SDA resident in Victoria has told us that, to begin claiming SDA funds, the resident must authorise a separate agreement as part of the SDA Residency Agreement. Is this correct? Or would they simply be referring to the service agreement we have with all our residents?

In Victoria, an NDIS participant with SDA funding living in an SDA enrolled dwelling needs to have an SDA agreement using the form on the Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV) website. If the resident has the capacity to sign the residential tenancy agreement, they must do so. Otherwise, the agreement will be established in line with processes on the CAV website. This should be enough to meet the requirement of the NDIS to have a signed SDA agreement in place.

It is noted that states and territories are responsible for tenancy regulation, and requirements differ across the states.

The resident should also sign a collaboration agreement that outlines how the SDA and SIL provider will jointly meet the participant’s housing support needs. Also, the resident will have an agreement for SIL support and may also need an agreement for any non-NDIS funded support, such as utilities, food, shared internet, and so on.

The NDIA recently introduced their new IT system, PACE. When a participant or their nominees have a new plan in the PACE system, they also need to tell the NDIA who they receive supports from. This includes telling the NDIA who their specialist disability accommodation provider is.

Assistive technology repair with NDIS funding

Can a client pay for their iPad repair with NDIS funding? Since her stroke, our client uses her iPad for reminder alerts for tasks and communicating with her providers.

For the repair to be funded by the NDIS, assistive technology must meet the Reasonable and Necessary Guidelines. To be considered reasonable and necessary the support or service:

• must be related to a participant’s disability
• must not include day-to-day living costs not related to your disability support needs, such as groceries
• should represent value for money
• must be likely to be effective and work for the participant, and
• should take into account support given to you by other government services, your family, carers, networks and the community.

In the example you have given, if the participant uses the tablet to meet the needs of her disability — such as set up alerts for tasks because of her memory loss — it may be repaired with plan funds, provided all other reasonable and necessary conditions are met.

SIL weekly claims for services

As a support coordinator, I have questions about a SIL provider weekly claims for services for my client.

1. Irregular SIL: The provider is claiming the full funded amount for irregular SIL, divided by 52 to get a weekly amount, regardless of whether Irregular SIL is used in that week. Should this only be claimed when it occurs?
2. Staff training. My understanding is that funding for staff training is built into the hourly rate charged to participants for SIL services. Is this correct?
3. Roster of Care (ROC) amount verses total SIL funded amount: The SIL provider claims there is a $20,000 gap between the 52 weekly claims ROC amount and the total SIL funded amount. The provider claims that staff training and Victorian public holidays can't be built into the ROC. Is this correct?

What is my next step if the SIL provider is not charging in line with the Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits?

NDS can only provide general advice about these matters, because we don’t know the specific details about the participant’s support needs or the SIL provider’s circumstances. However, below is our response using the NDIA pricing arrangements as our guide.

1. Irregular SIL support claiming

Irregular SIL is typically claimed only when additional services are delivered. It covers ad-hoc additional supports. For example, if extra staff are needed when the person needs to stay home when ill rather than attending regular work or group activities. Or if the person needs to be taken to medical or ancillary services.

Invoicing for irregular SIL support needs to be within the NDIA’s parameters and is typically sporadic. It should not be averaged out over the 52-week billing cycle but claimed when additional support is supplied and in line with all NDIA pricing arrangements.

You can read the guidance on Irregular SIL on the NDIS webpage about claiming for SIL.

2. SIL staff training

According to the NDIA SIL operational guidelines, some extra provider costs are built into the hourly rate that providers can charge for providing SIL. They include management, training of staff and shadow shifts (when a new worker works alongside another to help learn the job).

3. SIL ROC — public holidays

The SIL ROC allows for 12 public holidays each year. However, Victoria has 13 public holidays this year. Some Victorian providers may speak to participants about this additional holiday to get their consent to use their Irregular SIL funds for this. But some participants may not have enough Irregular SIL funding to cover it, so this is not always possible.

We suggest you speak to the SIL provider about your participant’s concerns and ask for a breakdown of the Irregular SIL claims they have made and for what purpose.

Employee eligibility for Supported Wage System

As a supported employment service, we have been told that NDIS participants who receive funding for supports in employment but do not reach the 20+ points on the impairment table do not qualify for the Disability Support Pension (DSP). Consequently, they cannot be paid under the Supported Wage System (SWS) as used in the Supported Employment Services (SES) Award 2020.

What advice can you give organisations wanting to employ these jobseekers who need extra support and modified work environments but are ineligible for the DSP? Should they be paid under the relevant industry award, even if their productivity is adversely affected by their disability?

The Supported Employment Services (SES) Award 2020 includes this definition of an employee with a disability: "a national system employee who qualifies for a disability support pension as set out in sections 94 or 95 of the Social Security Act 1991 (Cth), or who would be so qualified but for paragraph 94(1)(e) or paragraph 95(1)(c) of that Act."

In addition, the handbook for the Supported Wage System in Supported Employment (June 2023) says about employee eligibility for the SWS: "the person meets the impairment criteria for the Disability Support Pension (DSP) as determined by Centrelink.” This eligibility criterion applies to the SWS in all modern awards.

The employees could be employed and classified under one of the numbered grades in the SES Award, but not under Grades A or B and they could not be paid a reduced wage. They could also be employed under a relevant industry award, but they would be ineligible for the SWS and would need to be paid the full wage rate for the grade they were classified at.

An incorrect link was published in the March Helpdesk for Emergency Disaster planning resources. The correct link will take you to the NDS webpage that gives you all the information to respond to different types of emergencies and disasters.?