Ombudsman links backlog to lack of resourcing, competing priorities and pressure on the National Disability Insurance Agency

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

People with a disability are waiting months for simple callbacks when they complain of errors or inadequacies with their national disability insurance scheme support plan, the ombudsman has found.

The commonwealth ombudsman on Tuesday released the findings of its investigation into hundreds of complaints about the National Disability Insurance Agency’s ability to handle requests for reviews of support plans.

Reviews are typically requested when a plan or a decision is thought to be inadequate or contain an error – for example, if a person has been denied funding for wheelchair car modifications.

Sign up to receive the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

The ombudsman found a significant backlog in dealing with review requests.

The NDIA was, as of February, dealing with about 8,100 reviews and receiving about 620 new review requests per week. Some reviews are taking nine months to complete.

The ombudsman linked the problem to a lack of resourcing, competing priorities and pressure on the NDIA to meet its rollout targets.

The finding is likely to be seized on by Labor, which has long complained that the staffing cap imposed on the NDIA is hobbling the rollout of the landmark scheme.

The ombudsman has warned that failing to address the significant problems would mean reviews would continue to be “unwieldy, unapproachable and the driver of substantial complaint volumes” for participants.

Fully-funded NDIS should be government priority, poll says Read more

The ombudsman said it had received 400 complaints at least partly about the NDIA’s ability to handle reviews, which made up 32.5% of all NDIS-related complaints.



Delay and a lack of communication were constant sources of frustration. In one case study cited in the report, a woman who complained of errors in her plan in December 2016 was promised a callback by the NDIA. She heard nothing until February 2017.

The ombudsman acknowledged the NDIA was working to address the delays but found: “Without significant efforts to improve the timeliness of NDIA’s administration of reviews and communication with participants, there remains a risk that participants’ right to review will be undermined and review processes will continue to lack fairness and transparency and continue to drive a high volume of complaints.”

The report said the NDIA was wrongly treating requests for an internal review as requests for an unscheduled review, a different process altogether. This delayed them from being able to take their complaint to the administrative appeals tribunal, the report said.

There is a backlog of more than 8,000 NDIS reviews and it is getting worse Jenny Macklin

Damian Palmer, an academic with Charles Sturt University, has experienced significant difficulties with the scheme since his daughter became a participant in 2016. He told Guardian Australia his request for a review for his daughter’s plan was inappropriately handled by the NDIA and considered as an unscheduled review.

“One outcome of this is they took away $20,000 funding for an assistance dog that had been allocated in the plan that was being reviewed, and we were basically left with no way of protesting this,” he said. “I lodged a complaint with the NDIA some time in the second half of 2017 about the fact that the NDIA didn’t follow their own operational guidelines and clarify with me what kind of review we wanted. There has been no follow-up to that complaint.”

The report also found systemic problems in communicating with participants during the review process.

The NDIA said it “accepts the merit” of each of the ombudsman’s 20 recommendations and had already begun work on improving its handling of reviews. It has also established a dedicated team to work through the backlog.

Outsourcing NDIS contact centres to Serco 'an accident waiting to happen' Read more

“The NDIA acknowledges issues raised in the issues paper and appreciated your recognition of the unique operating environment during the period of transition to full scheme,” the agency said. “The NDIA is committed to improving its administration of reviews and acknowledges the review mechanisms … are an important feature of our legislation that provide participants with the right to seek a review of a decision made by the NDIA.”

A spokesman later told the Guardian the NDIA had undertaken a “significant program” to improve the NDIS rollout through two major projects in the past 12 months: the independent pricing review, and the participant and provider pathways review.

“The NDIS is a world-first reform, the size and scale of which means the scheme will not be without challenges,” the spokesman said. “The NDIA is committed to working to address concerns and delivering a significantly better way of providing support for 460,000 Australians with a disability, their families and carers.”



The shadow social services minister, Jenny Macklin, said the report showed people were waiting up to nine months for decisions that “impact their daily life”.

“There is a backlog of more than 8,000 NDIS reviews and it is getting worse,” Macklin said. “The NDIA is getting around 620 new review requests each week – that’s nearly 100 review requests each day. Only about 200 reviews are getting cleared each week. So the problem is just growing and growing.”

The social services minister, Dan Tehan, said the recommendations of the ombudsman had been accepted by the NDIA.

“Significant work to improve the NDIS review process has already started, including the establishment of a dedicated team to manage outstanding reviews, the Participant and Provider Pathways Review and the Independent Pricing Review,” he said.