More, better, or different? : NDIS workforce planning for people with intellectual disability and complex support needs

In Australia the disability sector is radically changing the way services are offered to people with disability under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS; National Disability Insurance Scheme Act, 2013). With the shift from traditional block-funded service approaches to individualised participant budgets, this change will have significant workforce implications. As the NDIS rolls out across the country the workforce is predicted to grow exponentially and, for the first time, the service sector will experience competition in the newly marketised environment underpinning the scheme. At the same time a separate but related issue is emerging. In assessing the scheme’s fit for the range of potential participants there are questions about how people with intellectual disability and complex support needs (Dowse, Cumming, Strnadová, Lee, & Trofimovs, 2014; Keene, 2001) will fare. These two separate issues are heading for confluence. People with intellectual disability and complex support needs are likely to represent a significant proportion of the NDIS’s anticipated 460,000 participants (National Disability Insurance Scheme, 2015a), but the extent to which the workforce is prepared and competent to meet their service needs is uncertain.