Equal access, unequal outcomes: The great NDIS divide
the Menzies Research Centre has conducted detailed analysis of NDIS data to highlight potential avenues for reform. by Nico Louw.
First published in the MRC’s Watercooler newsletter. Sign up to our mailing list to receive Watercooler directly in your inbox.
A note on the assassination of Charlie Kirk: Following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump last year, I wrote about the importance of defending civil discourse and debate. The reaction by some on the fringes of politics, particularly those who seem unable to bring themselves to say politically motivated murder is a bad thing, shows why this remains more important than ever.
You can find that piece here: Restoring Civility — Menzies Research Centre.
When it comes to getting government spending under control, no program looms larger than the NDIS.
As our Executive Director David Hughes outlined last week, the scale of the NDIS is enormous and the Scheme has been growing at an annual pace of more than 20 per cent in recent years. NDIS spending is already 60% higher than Commonwealth funding for schools and is on track to exceed funding for all levels of education combined in two years.
Recent official data showing that one in six six-year-old boys is now on the NDIS prompted Health Minister Mark Butler to announce plans to divert children with mild-to-moderate Autism away from the NDIS.
Butler also conceded that the National Cabinet’s target of limiting NDIS spending growth to 8 per cent annually was unsustainable and a further wave of reforms will be needed to get growth down further. His starting position is that spending growth should be “around 5 or 6 per cent”.
That the Government is willing to admit this and pursue reforms is a good thing. However, 5 to 6 per cent growth would still leave the NDIS growing faster than the economy, which is unsustainable in the long term. Achieving sustainable growth will require hard decisions and a complex, data-driven response.
To inform and help drive this important debate, the Menzies Research Centre has conducted detailed analysis of NDIS data to highlight potential avenues for reform. We combined official NDIS participation data with ABS population estimates to examine how NDIS use varies by geographic areas within Greater Sydney.
To our knowledge, no similar research has ever been published. The results are striking. Early findings were covered in last weekend’s AFR and a final report will be released in coming weeks. We wanted to share some key insights with you first.
The data revealed that there are significant disparities in NDIS participation rates by Local Government Area (LGA) within Sydney. The proportion of residents who are active NDIS participants is as high as 3.2% or around 1 in 30 people in Campbelltown, and as low as 0.8% or 1 in 125 people in Mosman.
When we looked deeper, these disparities were apparent even within individual LGAs. For example, the NDIS participation rate within Randwick City Council was as low as 0.9% in the north around the suburb of Kensington, and as high as 3.1% in the south around Chifley.
NDIS Participation rate
Source: Menzies Research Centre
Participation rates were generally much higher than average in Western Sydney, North West Sydney and South West Sydney. They were much lower in Northern and Eastern Sydney. We found similar differences in the participation rates for individual disabilities, such as Autism, Developmental Delay, Intellectual Disability and Psychosocial Disability.
Generally speaking, the higher the level of overall NDIS participation in a given area, the higher the rate of these individual disabilities. The exception to this pattern was Psychosocial Disability, the geographic dispersal of which was very different to the other disabilities examined. Interestingly, where a higher proportion of NDIS participants in a given area had Autism, the rate of Psychosocial Disability was generally much lower than average.
We have intentionally not sought to explain these geographic disparities. They could relate to factors such as age distribution, cultural background, or family incomes. What is clear, however, is that the disparities are so significant that they cannot be attributed to a single factor.
Understanding this requires further investigation. This is work that the Government, which holds detailed individual-level NDIS data, should be doing.
The agency tasked with overseeing the NDIS, the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), has over 16,000 staff and contractors. It is unclear whether they are aware of the scale of these disparities and relationships, let alone undertaking work to understand why they occur.
Given the NDIS is designed to serve some of the most vulnerable Australians, it is vital that public confidence in the Scheme is restored and a sustainable trajectory is found.
We hope our research will draw public attention to the challenges facing the NDIS and encourage the Government to direct the NDIA to undertake the work needed to get NDIS expenditure growth under control. This must include further analysis of the geographic disparities the MRC has identified.