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NDIS executives splash out $180m on ‘strategic advice’

Data shows that in just 16 months, NDIS execs splashed out $180 million-plus on consultants, contractors.

Chantelle Care-Wickham with her daughter Felicity, aged 5. Picture: Kelly Barnes
Chantelle Care-Wickham with her daughter Felicity, aged 5. Picture: Kelly Barnes

The executives in charge of running the National Disability ­Insurance Scheme spent more than $180 million on consultants and contractors in 16 months, $41.5m of which went to two top-tier private companies for “strategic advice”.

Leaked financial records from inside the National Disability ­Insurance Agency reveal the scale of outsourced expertise in the fledgling scheme, with the $180m figure from July last year to last month almost triple the $66m spent in 2015-16, taking the total to almost a quarter of a billion dollars.

The leading recipient of funding was global behemoth Boston Consulting Group, which raked in $21m after it was brought in to overhaul a Byzantine planning system that had become the scorn of people with disabilities who were often shunted onto support packages with little or no understanding of what had transpired.

In a bureaucratic twist, $10m was provided to Australian Healthcare Associates to conduct telephone planning and “information gathering” for the first support plans of NDIS clients, which was precisely the process abandoned under the new “participant pathway” that BCG helped design with its $21m payday.

The $22bn reform has been hit by growing pains and the speed of its delivery, which is enshrined in bilateral agreements signed between the federal government and states under Julia Gillard and has been heavily criticised by the Productivity Commission.

Consultants and contractors have been brought in to help fix a litany of rollout issues that spread after a near total IT meltdown in the middle of last year and included bungled client plans.

 
 

Adelaide mother of two Chantelle Care-Wickham said she was extremely frustrated after requesting an iPad and speech app in March for her five-year-old daughter Felicity, who has severe speech and language delays.

“Five months after making the request, our speech pathologist was sent a letter stating the NDIS had changed its forms and we had to reapply,” Ms Care-Wickham said.

Catch-up work is still a large part of the NDIA’s malaise. Documents show Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, which holds an ­ongoing contract as the NDIA’s “ICT Services Strategic Partner” invoiced the agency for $20.5m.

The NDIS now has 120,000 people with disabilities on its books and must reach 460,000 by the middle of 2020. The cost of the NDIS in 2016-17 was about $5bn.

At a Senate estimates hearing last month, agency executives said the NDIA employed 2127 staff, 1012 contractors and 2203 local area co-ordinators, and was “about 500-ish” full-time equivalent ­positions below a public service cap of 2460 places.

Many of these contractors are in the outsourced local area ­coordinators system. The financial records obtained by The Australian show $18.5m was paid to the Brotherhood of St Laurence and $6m to LaTrobe Community Health Service for this work.

Social Services Minister Christian Porter told The Australian the amount spent on the scheme was “a matter of public record”.

“It was always envisaged that there would be high upfront costs, including the need to engage outside experts, in establishing the NDIS,” Mr Porter said. “The amount spent is a matter of public record and is entirely within the existing budget and is designed to put in place systems to restrain future costs. The Productivity Commission has confirmed that the NDIS is within budget.”

The NDIA handed over more than $4m to a company called ­Assessments Australia, which was acquired by Max Solutions in December 2015. Max Solutions is owned by US parent company Maximus which dominates human services delivery around the world, including in Saudi Arabia, and is the largest single employment services contract holder under Australia’s jobactive program for the unemployed.

“Assessments Australia were engaged to assist the NDIA primarily to back-capture client data and their contract expired in 2016,” a spokeswoman for the agency said.

The BCG contract for planning reform ended on October 30 but a “small team” continues to assist the agency. “The National Disability Insurance Scheme is a complex and highly valued national reform and the scale, pace and nature of the changes it is driving are unprecedented in Australia,” an agency spokeswoman said.

The agency has struggled to recruit experienced, full-time staff and spent tens of millions on recruitment services. The largest recipient in this area was with Hays Specialist Recruitment, at $15m, while $7.5m was paid to DFP Recruitment Services. The agency also spent $17m with Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial property specialist. By comparison, the Department of Social Services spent $15.5m on consultants in 2016-17.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/health/ndis-executives-splash-out-180m-on-strategic-advice/news-story/b6299a237f5eed1d673695ade8beae20