Disability scheme slammed for ‘secrecy’

The body charged with delivering a ‘state-run’ version of the $22bn ­NDIS has been slammed by an inquiry.

The West Australian body charged with delivering a “state-run” version of the $22 billion ­National Disability Insurance Scheme has been excoriated by a parliamentary inquiry for giving evidence that was “opaque and adversarial”.

A report by the inquiry singles out Ron Chalmers, the director general of the West Australian Disability Services Commission, who has been in charge since 2007 and is one of the key people ­responsible for overseeing the move to a hybrid NDIS.

The state has not included any contingency for increased NDIS spending in its budget despite a deal announced this month between the Barnett government and federal Social Services Minister Christian Porter to move to the hybrid model from July.

Crucially, the agreement includes a clause that both jurisdictions will “share equally” in any savings due to “lower than expected participant numbers and-or lower package costs”.

“This will occur through a ­reversal of the funding mechanism available in other states, in that the commonwealth will provide funding in arrears based on actual participants that have transitioned,” the agreement says.

The state inquiry into the DSC, tabled in parliament in 2014, found the commission had then approved only 68 funding applications out of 679 in its most recent round.

“There are a number of negative consequences of the ... process, chief among them that intense competition for limited funds can result in families taking extreme measures, such as threatening suicide,” the report says.

The report also noted its “concern” that evaluations between the state My Way scheme and the NDIS — which have never been made public and for which a freedom of information request was refused recently — would be “compromised” by two different bodies and therefore not be ­comparable.

In its first finding, however, the committee, with three Labor and two Liberal Party members, questioned Dr Chalmers’s evidence.

“The director general of the Disability Services Commission presented evidence that was inconsistent with the majority of service providers, advocacy groups and clients,” it said.

Disability rights activist Samantha O’Connor said the DSC was meeting requirements on some ­issues, such as its sub-par internal appeals process, but added that disabled people “have not even had a chance to look at what is proposed for us”.

“There has been a remarkable lack of transparency in the deal ­between the federal and state governments,” she said.

“The evaluation is secret, ­details of the final model are secret and the cost to the taxpayer is ­secret.”

Dr Chalmers did not respond to a request for comment.