Page 4059 - Week 11 - Thursday, 21 September 2017
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in supports for participants with high and complex needs in its submission to the Productivity Commission and in bilateral conversations with the commonwealth government.
As we have implemented the NDIS in Canberra, more people have received a funded NDIS plan, more providers have entered the private market for services and competition has grown. It is not a perfect market mechanism and some areas of special need are difficult to meet. However, for many it is an advance from a government-provided service where, even with the best intentions, the recipients had limited choice or control.
The NDIS is not just about creating plans for individuals with a disability. Another important part is ensuring that people with disability have strong connections to and involvement in the wider community, and access to a range of services and community activities. That is where the commonwealth’s information, linkages and capacity building, or ILC program, comes in. The program is funded, like the rest of the NDIS, by the financial transfer from the ACT government and the other jurisdictions to the commonwealth.
A number of ACT organisations have been funded through the ILC grant rounds announced by the commonwealth earlier this year. Unfortunately, several organisations missed out on ILC grants. While this reflects the changing way that disability support organisations are now funded through the NDIS, we all share a commitment to ensuring that the investment in important and valued community supports is not lost. Officers in my directorate have been working with their counterparts in the NDIA to try to ensure that we do not lose ACT social capital through the ILC transition.
I am pleased that earlier this year the NDIA announced that four organisations will now receive targeted transition funding: Pegasus Riding for the Disabled; Technical Aid to the Disabled ACT, known as TADACT; the Epilepsy Association ACT; and Radio 1RPH. These four organisations have been funded on the basis that their activities align with the aims of the ILC program and that their viability is at risk, with a consequent danger that valuable sector capacity could be lost.
The organisations will be able to use the additional transitional funding to investigate alternative sources of funding to support their future viability. They can also look at re-aligning what they do and perhaps attract future ILC grant funding. In providing the targeted transitional funding until 28 February 2018 the NDIA is clear that this funding is a one-off measure for the ACT and does not guarantee funding under future ILC grant rounds. The organisations will, however, be encouraged to apply for ILC funding in the next ACT round, which is due to open in October 2017.
I have been impressed by the willingness of the NDIA team rolling out the ILC nationally to work genuinely and responsively with us in the ACT. I also understand that the ILC application process was burdensome for applicants and I have written to Minister Porter about the concerns raised with me by applicants. The
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