Media Release by The Hon Christian Porter MP

Media Statement from Minister Porter – NDIS MyPlace portal

In the National Disability Insurance Scheme’s first month of transition from trial to full scheme, the NDIA experienced difficulty in implementing the new NDIS MyPlace payment portal.

As a result there were disruptions and delays in payments being made to a group of providers and participants through the payment portal.

I have been working closely with the NDIA, and now the successful payments to providers and participants have increased from around 70 per cent to a 96 per cent success rate.

Once satisfied the main technical issues had been addressed, the Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services and I ordered an urgent independent review into the MyPlace portal.

This review began on 5 August and is expected to be completed and provided to me shortly.

Based on initial advice from PwC, as well as a short-lived technical issue experienced by bulk service providers, there was also an issue around the adequacy of information provided to users of the payment portal which led to errors in inputting necessary information. That situation is improving rapidly and significantly.

While the NDIA diverted resources to resolve the early IT issues as quickly as possible, there was a flow on effect of a slowdown in the rate of plan approvals for the large number of people deemed eligible for the scheme.

Currently more than 15,000 people have been deemed eligible for the scheme since 1 July 2016, which is more than 78 per cent of the bilateral target for the first quarter of transition. More than 5,000 of those people have commenced the planning process or had their plan approved.

I have requested the NDIA Board Chair to take action to resolve outstanding issues around information to portal users and ensure that transitional plan approval remains on target in the first two quarters of transition. Specifically I asked the NDIA take some immediate actions prior to the PWC report being finalised, including to:

  • Establish an NDIS Transition Management Team to address all outstanding portal issues, plan approval targets and communication with the sector;
  • Appoint a Chief Operating Officer to oversee all of the NDIA’s operational matters during the transition to full scheme roll out;
  • Ensure more robust reporting is undertaken on key metrics around portal issue resolution and plan approval rates; and
  • Establish stronger information sharing arrangements between the NDIA, DSS and DHS.

In cooperation with the Minister for Human Services, we have also ensured more than 100 additional staff from the Departments of Social Services and Human Services have been provided to the NDIA to implement these actions.

Importantly, any provider who has had difficulty since 1 July has been subject to individual attention from the NDIA and the number of providers and individuals who are still experiencing problems has reduced significantly.

I expect the final report from PwC shortly, and I will be making a statement about that in due course following consultations with my state and territory colleagues on the Disability Reform Council.

If there are specific recommendations from the report that the NDIA needs to implement, it has my full support to do that.