NDIS Act Explained Needs Assessment

NDIS Alert: Big changes coming to your plans!

Get ready for a shake-up in the NDIS world!

New framework plans and needs assessments are on the horizon, set to revolutionize how we determine your supports and budgets.Key points to remember:

• Needs assessments will focus on your support needs, not just what you can/can’t do
• A new 1000-person workforce will conduct these assessments
• New framework plans will offer more flexibility in how you use your funding
• Rollout begins September 2025, with all participants transitioning within 5 years

Needs assessments

What are needs assessments?

The NDIS Review recommended the NDIA use needs assessments to determine a participant’s reasonable and necessary budget.

A needs assessment is different to a functional assessment in that:

• A functional assessment looks at what a person can and can’t do.
• A needs assessment looks at the level of support a person needs to live their daily life and achieve their goals.

New framework plans

What are ‘new framework plans’ and ‘old framework plans’?

New framework plans will be plans developed based on the results of a needs assessment. New framework plans have not been rolled out yet (more on the timeline later).

The legislation gives the NDIS Minister the power to write legislative NDIS Rules, which will outline how needs assessments will be translated into new framework plans. This detail will be essential, as existing needs assessment tools don’t churn out a dollar amount. The NDIA will need a mechanism to turn the results of a needs assessment into a reasonable and necessary budget.

In creating the Rules, the Minister must ‘have regard’ to the principle that people with disability should be included in the co-design of these Rules. ‘Have regard’ to a ‘principle’… just commit babe.

Old framework plans are the plans we have right now. They’re developed the old-fashioned way, which for most people means negotiating with a Planner, who then goes off and negotiates with the NDIA.

What are the contents of new framework plans?

The NDIS Act gives us an overview of what we can expect from new framework plans.

The main change participants have been promised is more flexibility over how they use their funding. Plans will include a flexible budget and, if relevant, a stated budget.

• Flexible funding – can be spent on any support that is an NDIS support for that participant. Read more about NDIS supports: NDIS support lists released – finally!
• Stated funding – the plan will specify how stated funding can be used. It might say this funding can only be used for a specific type of support or must be delivered by a particular provider/type of provider.

This could signal a move away from Core, Capacity Building and Capital budgets and the complex funds flexibility rules.

New framework plans must also include:

• A person’s goals and aspirations.
• The total funding amount for the flexible and stated budgets – this is amount of funding available for the entire plan.
• The funding periods for the flexible and stated budgets. The new Act allows the NDIA to release a participant’s funding in intervals. The ‘funding periods’ are how often funding will be released and the proportion of the plan released at each interval. For example, a person might have 25% of their flexible funding released every 6 months. Funding periods can’t be longer than 12 months.
• The plan management type.
• General supports provided to the participant by the NDIA- this might include plan coordination or referral services.
• Whether the person has met the Disability or Early Intervention requirements.
• The plan end date.

The Act says that the NDIS Rules (when they are written) might also specify other things that can be included in the plan, like a requirement for ongoing contact with the NDIA.

Learn more

Hopefully, you’re now feeling more informed about new framework plans and needs assessments. Inevitably, things will hit another level of confusing when ‘new framework plans’ gets shortened to NFPs – think how confusing that will be for not-for-profits everywhere!

We’ve got a whole series of articles on the new legislation. I’m biased, but I reckon it’s pretty damn good! Check it out:

• NDIS Act Explained: Impairment Notices
• NDIS Act Explained: Debts
• NDIS Act Explained: Replacement Supports
• NDIS Act Explained: Eligibility Reassessments
• NDIS Act Explained: How participants can spend their funding
• New NDIS Act: Timeline of changes
• NDIS support lists released- finally!

Also, check out our upcoming workshops:

• New NDIS Law: Changes to Debt and Spending Compliance Powers
• The New NDIS Law: What Providers Need to Know
• Replacement Supports: How, When and Why?
• NDIS Eligibility Reassessments
• Program Billing Under the New NDIS Law
• Unpacking the new NDIS law changes for Plan Managers

What’s in it for you? More person-centered support and potentially greater control over your funding! 💪