Pricing that ensures the NDIS, and its workforce, is here to stay

However, continually low funding leaves workers without sufficient supervision, pay or adequate workplace support and pushes workers out of the sector, threatening its sustainability and future.  

Funding from NDIS prices hardly covers the bare minimum legal obligations under the Award, leaving providers either out of pocket or on the wrong side of the law. And the very conditions that have sustained well-qualified workers and high levels of supports through bargaining are at risk of disappearing entirely as providers fail to keep up with costs.

Urgent change is needed to the price guide to ensure that the NDIS is here to stay: that providers can stay afloat, ensure basic safety, and retain and attract workers to a sector overwhelmed with demand.

There’s no NDIS without disability support workers. The HSU’s calling on the NDIA to:

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1. Increase price limits and pass on higher wages:

• A worker delivering level 1 supports should be funded for a SACS 3.1 wage ($45 an hour – a 4.9% increase).

• Higher intensity supports should be based on SACS 4.1 ($51.90 an hour – a 15% increase)

• Supervisor funding should be based on at least SCHADS 4.2. ($53.25 an hour – a increase of up to 13%)

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2. Ensure:

• workers receive overtime and are only required to perform 1 hour of active supports.

• employers pay training leave and backfill staff rosters in the price guide, and fund it through increased allowances for overheads.

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3. Fund:

• Working conditions above the Award through a 2-3% increase to price limits for providers with EBAs

• the 5^th week of annual leave for shift workers

• paid leave for HSRs and union delegates

• providers to pay high-intensity wages owed to workers that deliver both standard and higher-intensity supports.

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4. Improve funding for:

• Supervision, both per worker, and with a ratio of supervisors per home.

• Employer-funded training through a permanent allowance

• Admin work, buddy shifts, handover and debrief. ‍

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5. Increase claiming limits for travel time.

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6. Publish the modelling behind funding for sleepover shifts and bring it line with the Award.

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Click here to read more in our submission to the NDIA’s annual price review.