Interestingly, the rate of open employment is significantly higher for people under the age of 25. If people in this age bracket are able to stay in open employment throughout their working lives, then this could be a sign of positive changes to come.

Participant Pathways

Employment is not the only topic that gets an airing in the quarterly report. There is also some very limited discussion on the new Participant Pathways. And I mean VERY limited discussion. What we do know is that the new general, complex support needs and psychosocial disability pathways have all been trialled and are at different stages of rolling out across the country. What we do not know, from this report or anywhere else, is exactly how the trials actually went. Presumably, the Agency believes they were a success if they are willing to roll the pathways out to the rest of the country. But in the absence of any hard data, it is difficult for any of us to draw the same conclusion.

We also do not have a roll out schedule for any of the pathways. This makes it hard for providers and Participants to anticipate when they can expect these changes.

Independent Assessment Pilot

In November 2018, an Independent Assessment Pilot was undertaken in NSW with people with autism, intellectual disability and psychosocial disability. The assessment involves an observational session and a functional assessment conducted by an Allied Health professional. The stated aim is to objectively measure the impact of disability on people’s daily lives, in the hopes of achieving fairer and more consistent access and planning outcomes. Conveniently, it also allows the Agency to use their own in-house Allied Health professionals to do assessments, rather than letting people select their own. According to the quarterly report, the results so far have been positive. Apparently, a ‘high percentage’ of people in the pilot were ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with the process. But in the absence of knowing what exactly the ‘high percentage’ was, this information is vague to the point of meaningless. It also does not necessarily tell us whether the assessment is actually producing fairer outcomes, like it was designed to.