NSW budget 2016: NDIS cash injection flags disability ‘evolution’

The National Disability Insurance Scheme in NSW will receive more than $2 billion in the next ­financial year alone.

NSW Minister for Disability Services John Ajaka. ‘Real choice and ­control.’ Picture: Robert Pozo

The National Disability Insurance Scheme in NSW will receive more than $2 billion in the next ­financial year alone, including $1.3bn from the state and $740 million from the commonwealth, sparking a massive evolution in service ­delivery.

The budget locks in ­annual funding increases across the ­forward estimates that will hit $3.2bn in 2018-19 — in addition to a further $3.3bn in federal funds — as staff move over to the NDIS and non-government organisations. About 10,000 staff are expected to go in coming years, including 4000 in this budget cycle who will transfer with the Home Care service sold to Australian Unity last year. In just one year, the NDIS in NSW will ­expand by 40,000 places on its way to an eventual 140,000 places.

Capital projects have slowed in the sector as the state has largely finished an ambitious program of developing and building group homes in which people with complex disabilities can live.

Disability Services Minister John Ajaka has almost finished a process to close down big residential institutions. Nevertheless, the government will still spend more than $1.8bn in 2016-17 to run “supported accommodation”, taking its disability outlays to about half of the total $6.1bn community services budget.

“Our strong budget has given us the capability to deliver this once-in-a-generation reform, which will transform the lives of thousands,” Treasurer Gladys ­Berejiklian said.

Mr Ajaka said this year was a “watershed” moment for the scheme, which would “give people with disability real choice and ­control over their own lives for the very first time”.