DISABILITY SERVICES, SELF-MANAGED FUNDING

The Hon. S.G. WADE (15:06): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Disability Services a question relating to self-managed funding.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: My office has recently received complaints about the Department of Communities and Social Inclusion's self-managed funding program for people with a disability. The department claims that the program allows members of our community with a disability to take control of the support they receive; however, the opposition has received numerous complaints that Disability SA's gatekeeper program so strictly and narrowly applies the guidelines that self-management is effectively undermined. My questions to the minister are:

1. What guidelines and other instructions to staff are in place to ensure that self-managed funding is indeed self-managed?

2. What approval or reporting requirements are clients subject to on the packages they receive?

3. What complaint procedures and rights of appeal do clients have for decisions by administrators in relation to the application of their self-managed funds?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (15:07): As is well known, in December 2011, in response to the former Social Inclusion Board's Strong Voices report, the Premier announced the introduction of individualised and self-managed funding for clients of Disability SA. This reform is all about providing people with disability increased rights, choice, flexibility and dignity. This reform will allow eligible clients to choose their own supports, their own service providers and the timing of their support.

By the end of 2013 all clients of Disability SA with high to very high support needs will have a personal budget. These are people who receive six hours or more support a week. The individualised funding reform will be offered to clients in three stages, and I have outlined in this place previously how that will work. Everyone who receives more than six hours of support per week is eligible for this new system. Where a child or person with an intellectual disability is involved, a family member or a guardian could be the agent.

So people will, with help if need be, draw up a personal support plan for how the personal budget they are allocated is to be spent. The personal support plan is a guide, not a contract, of what must be purchased. Choice and control will lie with the individual person with a disability so that people can choose when, where, how and by whom and with what agency they get their support. People can change arrangements at any time as long as it is consistent with their personal support plan.

Clients will be able to receive their personal budget via direct payment into a bank account in their name to organise and pay for their supports. They will be able to receive their personal budget via direct payment to a bank account in their name to be administered by a person they have chosen to actively manage their funding and support arrangements on their behalf, or they will be able to receive their personal budget via direct payment to a bank account in their name to be administered by an organisation, a business or a profession chosen to actively manage their support arrangements on their behalf. They may also have their personal budget lodged with a non-government organisation of their choice to provide their support.

They may also have their personalised budget lodged with Disability Services SA to provide their support to them directly. These are a range of personal supports that people can elect to take. They can elect to take control of their whole personal budget and their spend or part of it. They can mix up how much they want to take control of independently and how much they want another agent or organisation to enact on their behalf. This is all about giving access, control and flexibility back to the person with that disability. The honourable member says in this place that he has some specifics in relation to complaints: I invite the honourable member to forward them to my office and I will deal with them.