What an exciting year it has been for Centro ASSIST as we work to support providers improve their quality and compliance management across the aged and disability care sectors in Australia.

At the human services sector level, we saw various parliamentary enquiries and Royal Commissions into aged care, out of home care, mental health and the NDIS. The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation into PWD is ongoing till 2022, with a budget of $528 million and will lead to profound changes in the sector (link to Centro blog). The federal Government and stakeholders are working on the Disability Strategy 2020-30[1] with consultations country wide since April. In Australia, 4.3 million people are estimated to have a disability (see Figure 1).

[1] The National Disability Strategy 2010-2020 is Australia's framework for creating a more inclusive society that enables people with disability to fulfill their potential as equal citizens. At the end of 2020 the National Disability Strategy will end and governments across Australia are working together to develop a new strategy for beyond 2020-2030. Since April 2019, there have been numerous face-to-face and online workshops in each state and territory where PWD were able to help shape the next strategy and have a leading role in modernising the policies and programs that affect them.

The NDIA has continued the rollout of the NDIS across the country with 311,774 people now active with an approved plan (personal budget) (see Report as at 30/9/19) and the ILC program operating across Australia. The NDIA has had a clean sweep with a new Minister, the Hon Stuart Robert (MP), new Board Chair and Directors and a new CEO, Martin Hoffman. They recently announced the NDIS reform plan with “5 swimlanes”  that will hopefully improve the experience for all the stakeholders going forward. Various strategies have been prepared and released including the  Participant Employment Strategy, the CALD Strategy, the Rural and Remote Strategy and the  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Strategy.

The NDIS has introduced numerous pricing updates and has the Annual Price Review Consultation[1] open for comment now till 3 February with changes taking affect on 1 July 2020. Various improvements have been introduced over the past year including new pathways for Psychosocial Disability (with a new evidence form to be used) and for Complex Needs,  as well as formal mechanisms for interfacing with mainstream services in health, education and justice. The Australian Government has promised to develop an NDIS Participant Service Guarantee[2] by July 1 2020 to support positive participant experiences with the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Mr David Tune AO PSM, will lead a review of the NDIS laws and rules that will focus on opportunities to make the NDIS process simpler and more straight forward.

We have seen great lobbying work by established peak bodies like NDS and the emergence of new ones like the SDA Providers Association, the Sam Paior initiated Disability Intermediaries Australia[3], the Allied Health Professions Australia and the new Allied Health Awards and ATSA (see the NDIS Assistive Technology Strategy), amongst others. Family carers have an improved Carer Gateway website plus support services from Carers Australia and “respite” has recently been recognised by the NDIS in the latest pricing updates.

Centro ASSIST has built some strong partnerships over the past year including with the University of New England that uses Centro ESSENTIALS in their post-graduate Law course in NDIS Business , the service provider directory MyCareSpace, LASA (the aged care peak membership body) and with three leading audit firms. We partnered with LASA[4] and they launched their Safety and Quality Management System web app in March this year.

The Centro ASSIST web app for compliance under the NDIS Standards and QS Commission has evolved and improved its functionality for customers. Originally launched in March 2018 with Centro FREE and then Centro ESSENTIALS in July (was Core and Core PLUS), Centro BUSINESS was launched in September 2018. We are really proud to now have a full suite of policy and process management solutions for over 1000 customers ranging in size from sole traders to over 1000 FTE. We have introduced editing ability, corporate branding, release management, SIR (single item reports) and a Knowledge Testing module for Centro BUSINESS and Centro Professional customers. Centro PROFESSIONAL was launched in September for providers that require more advanced functionality than Centro ESSENTIALS.

At the end of August, Holocentric was acquired by the Canadian stockmarket listed company, Constellation Software Inc. We are now part of the Volaris vertical that includes other software companies operating in the Government and health markets[5].

I wrote 23 Blogs this year (about one a fortnight since March), covering insights from disability and mental health conferences, NDS conferences, academic research reports, NDIS, BLCW (part of the ILC program), SDA, data and digital transformation. My favourite was Professor David Gilchrist from UWA, who gave a really interesting presentation at the NDS CEO Meeting in November about his work on the economics of the NDIS (see diagram below) and the reform that is needed.

As a carer myself, I feel privileged to work in this sector and to use my lived experience and advocacy skills to improve the services for PWD or mental illness and their carers in Australia.

Wishing you a very enjoyable holiday break and a very Happy New Year.

Regards,

Arahni Sont

Strategy and Partnerships

[1] The NDIS Annual Price Review 2020–21 is now underway. This Review will examine whether the existing pricing framework and other pricing related policies under the NDIS continue to be appropriate, or whether modifications are required. The NDIA aims to identify options to improve the flexibility for participants to purchase supports to meet their goals, and where possible, reduce the administrative burden for providers. Providers, as well as participants, their families and carers, community, peak bodies and other sector representatives are encouraged to provide feedback as part of the Review.

[2] The Participant Service Guarantee will set new standards for the time it takes for key steps in the NDIS process. This means there will be shorter, agreed timeframes for people to receive a decision on whether they will be covered by the NDIS, for them to get an NDIS plan and to have their plan reviewed. A particular focus will be on children and those participants needing specialist disability accommodation and assistive technology. The new Guarantee will be in place from 1 July 2020. To develop the Guarantee, the Government has commissioned a review of the NDIS laws and rules that will focus on opportunities to make the NDIS process simpler and more straight forward, and remove barriers to positive participant and provider experiences with the NDIS. The review will consider what changes may need to be made to the NDIS legislation to support the Guarantee and set new standards into law. The Government has appointed an independent expert, Mr David Tune AO PSM, to lead the review. Mr Tune has significant experience in public administration and reviewing important policy. He is the former Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Finance who retired from the Australian Public Service in 2014, before leading reviews into Parliamentary entitlements and changes to the aged care system. Mr Tune is expected to hand down recommendations to the Government by the end of 2019, to support the rollout of the Guarantee on 1 July 2020.

[3] Formed in late 2018 by six providers of Plan Management and Support Co-ordination services, DIA is defined by the value that makes intermediary services what they were intended to be: independent. As the NDIS continues to make intermediary services better suited to the self-determination goals of people with disability, DIA will be an active voice for support and reform to intermediary products so that they are more reputable, resilient and viable. 

[4] “SQMS, a Cloud-based award-winning system - staff can access it from any Internet-enabled device. Version control is a thing of the past, and all your staff will have access to the same process and policy information—an ideal solution for multi-site and remote operators. Powered by CentroAssist—LASA’s quality system is an award-winning technology solution built on a robust platform you can rely on”.

[5] CSI has acquired over 260 companies since being founded by Mark Leonard in 1995 and now has 16,000 employees globally in over 100 countries. The businesses continuously develop innovative solutions that enable over 125,000 customers to achieve their objectives. The company is listed and valued at about US$26 billion. Revenue in the 9 months to end September was US$2.5 billion and net profit was US$241 million (up 20% since the similar period in 2018).