Review of Long-term Disability Supports

What is the problem?

Disabled people have said to Government that they want to have an ordinary life. In 2000, when the New Zealand Disability Strategy was being talked about around the country, many disabled people said they found it hard to have an ordinary life like non-disabled people do.

This was because people often had problems getting supports to do things and live well. The types of supports disabled people use include having help:

• at home, to get ready in the morning/evening and prepare meals
• in moving around the community, like in a taxi van
• at school and in further education after school, like at polytechnics
• to get equipment, such as a wheelchair or other kinds of technology
• making changes to a home or workplace, like building a ramp to the front door
• using a New Zealand Sign Language interpreter to communicate
• in finding and keeping a job.

People said it was hard to find out what supports were available. It was also hard to get the supports provided once they had worked out which ones they needed. Sometimes they had to go to many different places to get them, and these places might have different rules about what they could get. All these things made getting supports hard work.

Because of these problems, the Government decided to look at making changes to how supports are provided so disabled people could have better lives.

The Office for Disability Issues was asked to take the lead to work out what was going wrong and to make supports paid for by government better. There are ten government departments that pay for supports. The Office talked with all of these departments to get agreement on how to improve things in the future.

Findings from the review

The Office and government departments worked together on the Review of Long-Term Disability Supports. We made use of what disabled people had already told government about problems with getting supports. We also talked to people and groups to make sure we understand the problems today. Other government agencies are working closely with us as we go forward.

The review's goals were to:

• improve the focus on outcomes and measurement
• enhance consumer choice and service flexibility
• build capability
• improve co-ordination and contracting.

There is significant work underway across government to implement these broad directions, including: expanding supported independent living; increasing access to individualised funding; moves to outcome focused funding; cross-government initiatives to improve and better align assessment; and a greater focus on preparation and support for disabled people entering paid employment.

In addition, government funding injections have provided for higher contract rates to providers and improved terms of employment for the lowest paid support workers.

However, progress in fully achieving the improvements sought by disabled people has been constrained by the rising costs of supports, the greater number of people seeking them, and workforce constraints. Submissions to the Social Services Select Committee Inquiry into the Quality and Care of Services Provision for Disabled People noted the concerns of disabled people about the slow pace of improvement in the quality of supports and services, and ongoing lack of choice and personal control in accessing supports.

To add momentum, additional action is recommended in two areas:

• firstly, the development of a highly visible and accessible entry point to government disability support information, to enhance knowledge about, and access to, government-funded programmes; and
• secondly, work to ensure disabled children and young people are included as a focus of mainstream services. 

Proposals were also made to streamline reporting on work across government to achieve the directions agreed through the Review.

In March 2008, the Government agreed to recommendations on the future direction of disability supports.