The government has announced significant changes to the disability support system.
Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston addressed stakeholders in a call ahead of attending the Disability Connect expo in Auckland on Wednesday.
She said assessment processes and allocations for support services using the Needs Assessment and Service Coordination (NASC) system would be standardised across the country.
The Minister for Disability Issues Louise Upston announces major changes to the way disability support services will be allocated and funded. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
Purchasing guidelines - including the controversial cost-saving changes made in March last year - would be abandoned, with disabled people having more control over what they spend on, but with a hard limit on spending.
This "budget" would initially be allocated based on past spending levels for individual users. NASCs would work with support service users to develop a personal plan setting out the intentions for the funding each person would receive.
"The intent may be maintaining stability or pursuing specific goals. The plan will focus on what the disabled person wants and needs to address the barriers linked to their disability," Upston said.
Family and carer needs would also be considered in assessments, if their needs were relevant to the care of the person accessing the support.
"This was something we heard really clearly through the consultation. Supporting carers is essential to sustaining carers and the support they provide for their loved ones. It also helps everyone involved to plan for situations where the family or carers can no longer provide care."
Disability Support Services deputy chief executive Chris Bunny. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
The new approach would be rolled out in stages:
- From 1 February, 2026 to assessments of people entering the system for the first time
- Existing flexible funding users would get access to a new budget under the scheme from 1 April, 2026
- From 1 October, 2026 people receiving regular reassessment would do so under the new system.
The separate Enabling Good Lives system would remain unchanged for now, with Upston saying further consideration was needed on that.
However, she said more than 90 percent of flexible funding users accessed support through the NASC providers.
Upston said the changes came from feedback from more than 1800 disabled people, their families and carers calling for more freedom to make their own decisions about how to spend the funding allocated to them.
"We know some difficult decisions had to be made in 2024 to limit ongoing acceleration of costs. Since then, we have done more work to make sure disabled people, their families and carers have a system they can trust and is easy to use," she said in a written statement.
Problems with the provision of support services identified in the report by Sir Maarten Wevers last year stemmed from "long-standing issues that had not been tackled over time", she said.
"My absolute priority is to ensure the disability support system is more consistent, transparent, sustainable and fair."
Questioned by RNZ about the budgets being based on past spending - rather than past funding - MSD's Alastair Hill gave assurances this would not mean limiting funding to the amounts people were able to spend under the controversial rules the government had since agreed to scrap.
"Yes, people have previously been allocated funding that they did not spend within the allocation period. We recognise that in some cases that may have been due to restrictions to the purchasing guidelines that were put in place in March 2024," Hill said.
"That is why, when we set the new flexible funding budgets, we will consider the spending period from June 2023 - June 2025, so that budgets reflect people's previous spending, prior to March 2024, where that's relevant."
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