Special Budget Issue | May 2007
As part of the 2007-08 Federal Budget, the Australian Government yesterday announced an additional $12.2 million for the National Disability Advocacy Program (NDAP) that will be provided over four years to:
This investment demonstrates the commitment of the Australian Government in supporting the vital role that disability advocacy services play in the lives of people with disability.
All FaCSIA funded disability advocacy services will soon receive some information from the Minister for Community Services, the Hon Nigel Scullion about the Budget announcement and the reform process.
The Department will also be hosting an information and consultation session in every capital city in the near future. All FaCSIA funded disability advocacy services will be invited to attend to hear more about the Budget announcement and the reforms to the program. The sessions will also provide disability advocacy services an opportunity to discuss a range of issues relating to the reforms with the Department.
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The Department’s Disability Branch has recently created a new ‘Advocacy Reforms and Management’ Section to oversee the reforms to the NDAP as well as working with the Department’s state and territory offices in the on-going management of this program.
Lou-Anne Lind is the new Section Manager leading this team and will be the point of contact for all matters relating to the Budget announcement and the reforms to the program.
Lou-Anne’s contact details are:
Work Tel: (02) 6244 6120
Work Fax: (02) 6244 8499
Mobile Tel: 0418 475 523
Email: lou-anne.lind@facsia.gov.au
Post:
Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
Disability Branch TOP-CE3
Box 7576
Canberra Mail Centre ACT 2601
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A requirement of the recently expired 6 month variation to the NDAP Funding Agreement was the submission of Audited Financial Reports, which relate to the first half of the 2006-07 financial year, by disability advocacy services on or before 30 April 2007.
Under the current NDAP Long Form Funding Agreement executed on 1 January 2007, disability advocacy services are also required to submit Audited Financial Reports to the Department by the 31 October 2007. These reports relate to the second half of the 2006-07 financial year.
As both requirements relate to the same financial year, in the interests of reducing the reporting burden and costs, the Department only requires disability advocacy services that accepted the 18 month funding agreement (effective 1 January 2007) submit one Audited Financial Report on or before 31 October 2007 to meet the reporting requirements of the two agreements.
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The Department has also extended the timeframe for disability advocacy services to undertake a self assessment report against the Disability Services Standards and the new Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that were due 31 May 2007.
Further details will be provided to disability advocacy services at the upcoming information and consultation sessions about a new timeframe for the self-assessments.
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In the 1996-97 Budget, the Government launched a broad reform agenda for disability employment services to address concerns that existing block grant funding for disability employment services was inequitable, not transparent, insufficiently outcome-focused and did not reflect the support needs of individual job seekers with disability.
In the 2003-04 Budget the Government announced a new case based funding model to address the concerns about block grant funding.
In the 2007-08 Budget the Australian Government has announced a continuation of the case based funding model.
This decision arises from a major evaluation which found that the new funding model enables funding to be more closely matched to the support needs of individuals and results in better outcomes for those individuals.
The extension of this measure means that around 18,000 people with disability in over 220 disability business services will be assured of continued access to supported employment places in disability business services.
The report of the evaluation made a number of recommendations which are currently being considered by Government.
More information on the evaluation will be provided in future editions of eNews.
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