MyPlace roll-out should have been staged, says minister

Assistant Disabilities Minister Jane Prentice admits preparing for NDIS glitches would have helped parents and therapists.

A staged transition of a new computer system and preparation for inevitable glitches would have saved parents of disabled children and their therapists from frustrating disruptions to the $22 billion National Disability ­Insurance Scheme, Assistant Disabilities Minister Jane Prentice says.

Ms Prentice, the minister ultimately responsible for managing the ­operational side of the NDIS, has just finished another round of meetings across the country as the federal government scrambles to restore faith in an ambitious national rollout that involves ­assessing and approving individual plans for 430,000 ­people during the next three years.

Ms Prentice and Social Services Minister Christian Porter earlier this month were forced to commission a review by PwC into the flawed new MyPlace payment portal used by the National ­Disability Insurance Agency, blamed for some providers being left unpaid and some people ­unable to access services since June.

Ahead of tomorrow’s release of the review’s findings, Ms Prentice told The Australian there were ongoing IT issues that needed to be resolved, despite assurances from the agency a fortnight ago that the “portals are now able to process claims without error”.

The NDIA online processing system was shut down on June 16 to shift to the MyPlace system for the national services rollout on July 1. Ms Prentice said that, in hindsight, perhaps a staged rollout would have been sensible.

“Maybe we could have done it state-by-state,” she said. “I am ­always amazed at some people’s great confidence that everything is going to miraculously work from the first day, because it ­rarely does. I’ve always said you have to assume it’s going to go wrong and be prepared for how to fix it.”

She said the PwC review would pinpoint failures, although sources told The Australian the mainissues appeared to be around communication from the NDIA, and providing the right information to providers and users.

“Any new computer system is going to have problems. In fact, any computer system has ongoing problems,” Ms Prentice said. “We need to be upfront, say ‘we’ve got a problem and we need to fix it, please give us your feedback, so we know where it’s falling over’.” Ms Prentice agreed service providers were experiencing ­financial problems and were very worried for their clients.