NDIS National Workforce Plan: 2021-2025 sector briefings

NDIS National Workforce Plan 2021-2025

Sector briefing 29 June 2021 transcript

Good afternoon everyone. My name is Luke Mansfield and I’m the Group Manager in the Department of Social Services Market Capability Group and today I’m here to take you through the NDIS National Workforce Plan and its 16 initiatives. 

I want to start with two things. This session is being recorded so that those from the sector who are unable to participate will be able to look at it later and we will be doing a summary of this session for the benefit of the sector.

I also want to start by acknowledging the traditional custodians of lands around the country and acknowledge and pay my respects to elders past present and emerging and extend those respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people participating in this briefing session.

I’m really pleased that so many people have been able to join for this session today I think over 78 people have joined so far. We welcome your interest in this NDIS National Workforce Plan and we’re really keen to ensure there is rich and deep consultation with the sector as we seek to implement these initiatives. As is reflected in the plan we see the sector as critical partners for the overall goal and that is to build a sustainable and capable workforce into the future to support the NDIS and its participants to get the services and supports they need.

To help the flow of the presentation, could I please ask everyone go onto mute and stay on mute. 

We will have a question and answer session at the end of the presentation. You are very welcome to ask questions in the chat section throughout the presentation, and I will do my best to respond to as many questions as possible at the end. If there are things that we can’t respond to we will also seek to take note of those and where necessary we’ll put some further information out about those initiatives or pick it up in one of the future sessions with the sector which we’ve committed to do. The presentation slides will also provide an indication going forward of how you will be able to engage with us around each of the initiatives.

Hopefully you can see the slides but we’ll make sure we put the slides on the department’s website after this session. 

The Australian Government is committed to delivering on the NDIS, and that includes ensuring there is a strong and sustainable workforce to support it. 

The NDIS National Workforce Plan was launched by Minister Reynolds on 10 June 2021. 

We want to work closely with the sector as we implement this Plan to ensure we can build a modern, responsive, capable workforce caring for our fellow Australians both now and into the future.

As many of you will be aware, more than 500,000 participants will be supported by the NDIS when it reaches full Scheme maturity, with an additional 83,000 workers needed to support them. 

Initiatives in the Plan are designed to attract workers with suitable skills, values and attributes, while also improving existing workers’ access to training and development opportunities. 

The initiatives in the Plan will not only support quality and growth in the disability sector and the NDIS, but also support other complementary initiatives in aged care and support for our veterans, through greater alignment particularly of regulation. 

Through strengthening a responsive and capable workforce, NDIS participants, older Australians and veterans will be afforded greater choice and control without compromising on quality and safeguarding.

The Plan will generate benefits for participants, workers, providers, and the broader economy.

To recap on how we got to where we are, the Plan has been subject to extensive consultation with participants, providers, peak bodies, experts and Commonwealth and state and territory governments. 

There has been stakeholder meetings, workshops and an open survey and that has occurred over more than 12 months of engagement with the sector.

We have welcomed this broad engagement, and will continue to work closely with you as we implement the plan.

The Workforce Plan sets out three Priority areas and sixteen initiatives to drive better workforce and participant outcomes and growth. We’ll go into each of the initiatives in more detail throughout the presentation.

I’ll start with Priority 1, which is to improve community understanding of the benefits of working in the care and support sector and strengthen entry pathways for suitable workers to enter the sector.

Priority 1 aims to improve community understanding of the benefits of working in the care and support sector and strengthen entry pathways for suitable workers to come into sector.

Initiatives 1 to 5 are part of an integrated journey to attract new workers to the care and support sector – in particular focussed on how we can target workers that may not have previously considered working in the sector, but have the right values and attributes as well as skills.

The first initiative is around promoting opportunities in the care and support sector.

As you know, Australia’s ageing population and more participants in the NDIS means there is a critical need to grow the care and support workforce over coming years.

I mentioned earlier, up to 83,000 additional workers will be required in the NDIS in the next few years and in addition to that, 57,000 workers will be required for aged care by 2024, and the veterans’ care sector will benefit from growth in both areas. 

This workforce, as reflected in feedback from the sector, it is really important that they have the right skills but also the right qualities to meet the changing needs of people with disability and older Australians, now and into the future.

Initiative 1 will seek to promote the care and support sector through a range of communication activities that aims to lift public perception of the sector, and really highlight benefits of working in the sector and the opportunities. This is aimed at attracting and identifying new workers who have the right values and attributes.

The communication activities will promote the care and support workforce – that is, across the disability, aged-care and veterans’ care sectors. The intention is to focus the activities on emphasising the benefits of working in the sector through real stories of the positive connections between workers and the people they support. We have been doing quite a bit of work already to test ideas around this and will be working closely with the sector ahead of commencement of these communication activities in a few months' time. 

Initiative 2 is about developing a simple and accessible online tool for job seekers to self-assess their suitability for new roles based on values, attributes, skills and experience. Through this initiative we’ll be seeking to develop a simple and accessible online tool that allows potential workers to look at roles in the care and support sector to assess whether it is the right fit for them based on values, attributes, skills and experiences. 

The online tool, we intend to extensively user test the tool to ensure it is fit for purpose. If you would like to participate in user testing for development of the tool please reach out to the NDIS National Workforce Plan mailbox which is NDISworkforceplan@dss.gov.au. We will post this on the department’s website so you can find those details.

Initiative 3 is around improving effectiveness of jobs boards to match job seekers to vacancies in the sector. We really want to make it easier for job seekers to find care and support jobs that are right for them with more effective jobs boards.

We’re going to work very closely with the Department of Education, Skills and Employment as well as relevant provider peaks, participant peaks and other providers to look at ways we can improve jobs boards to help match workers to vacancies. This will include helping job seekers to navigate jobs boards and providing information that deepens their understanding of the sector and potential roles.

For example, when a job seeker clicks through on a jobs board they will land on a page that includes information about the sector, and be able to assess whether it is a good fit for them, learn more about requirements for working in the sector, and then directly click through and apply for jobs in the sector.

Initiative 4 is about leveraging employment programs to ensure suitable job seekers can find work in the sector. The intention is to work with other stakeholders to implement improvements to existing employment programs and potentially establish new initiatives. This will focus in on:

• Enhancing efforts to identify suitable new workers
• Raising awareness of opportunities in the care and support sector
• Exploring employment service providers trials
• Ensuring strong links between care and support service employers, employment service providers as well as workers. For example, through employment programs supporting placements for workers in the care and support sector by developing information sessions and training materials for employment service providers and employers. 

Initiative 5 is about better connecting NDIS and care and support providers to employment and training providers and workers.

The Boosting the Local Care Workforce Program as you may be aware employs up to 25 Regional Coordinators to help local organisations build sustainable businesses and to grow their workforce under the NDIS. The way that they do that is by providing localised support and gathering intelligence for government and for the department on provider and workforce issues. 

The Program is expanding its remit to the broader care and support sector to not only support NDIS providers but also aged care and veterans’ care providers over the period ahead. 

The focus of this expansion will be on workforce, ensuring providers can access jobseekers, by strengthening the connections to training and employment services providers.

In the 2020-21 Budget $16.9 million was announced for this expansion and the extension to the program from 1 July 2021 through to 30 June 2023.

The current remit of Regional Coordinators and Subject Matter Specialists will be expanded to leverage existing networks to provide market demand information on workers to educators and employment service providers so that they can understand the demand. 

The coordinator cohort will actively engage with:

• Providers across the care and support sector
• As well as education providers so universities and VET sector providers
• As well as employment services providers. 

That is the end of the initiatives around priority one. Priority 2 is focused on training and support for the NDIS workforce. This will be achieved through a number of initiatives: 

• Establishing micro-credentials that enable workers to upskill 
• A Care and Support Worker Professional Network which promotes excellence 
• Developing a skills passport to enable the recording of training and also to support enhanced flexibility and 
• Helping students into the care and support sector through supported traineeships

These initiatives are in addition to the certificate qualifications review already underway and the ongoing work of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission to implement the Capability Framework through information and tools for the sector.

The first of these initiatives is developing micro-credentials and updating nationally recognised training to improve the quality of supports and enhance career pathways.

The government’s investment in disability micro-credentials will provide the sector with greater flexibility in meeting workforce skill and training needs.

This commitment builds on the government’s economic recovery agenda as we emerge from COVID-19 by expanding opportunities for job seekers impacted by the pandemic to find work in the rapidly expanding care and support sector.

It is intended to expand the range and scope of industry-recognised training available to care and support workers and contribute to improvements in relation to the safety and quality of services received by NDIS participants. 

We’re very conscious there will be a need for extensive stakeholder consultation and that will occur across 2021-22, including with carers and participants and their families. We will be seeking to map skill requirements and inform development of guidance on curriculum topics, content and assessment.

The Human Services Skills Organisation (HSSO) have agreed to lead the consultation and co-design process around this work and the department will approach the market shortly to procure a consultant to support this activity by HSSO. HSSO has deep experience in these issues and we will be seeking to work with them to actively engage the sector around the development of micro-credentials. In terms of timing, it is anticipated that guidance on topics and content for micro-credentials will be made available to Registered Training Organisations in the second half of 2022.

The next initiative is around supporting the sector to develop a Care and Support Worker Professional Network.

Government investment in care and support professional networks will seek to support more workers in the sector to connect with peers and with peer support to share and promote good practice.

This commitment will contribute to workforce retention and continuous learning. We’re very conscious that in this sector a lot of disability support workers operate in individual homes and can be a bit more isolated from their peers and supervisors and management lines.

Developing and implementing a care and support worker professional network will hopefully contribute to improvements in relation to quality of services and safety of participants but also support those really important peer connections across the sector. 

We will be focusing this initiative on workers who are more isolated or experiencing significant challenges. It is likely this will be a placed based approach to pilot different models about how best to establish peer support and mentoring network supports.

We are intending that we would run a pilot of professional networks during the course of 2022, in close collaboration with the sector. 

Initiative 8 is to work with the sector around establishing a skills passport. Government investment in a national care and support worker skills passport is intended to support workforce growth, retention and mobility by making it easier and more cost effective for employees, employers and participants to verify worker qualifications, experience and other employment requirements.

By contributing to greater transparency on worker skills and qualifications, the passport will enhance the safety and quality of services received by participants. 

We will be engaging extensively with stakeholders around this initiative including with carers, as well as participants and their families to ensure the care and support national skills passport meets the needs of employees, employers and participants.

Initiative 9 is around supporting the sector to grow the number of traineeships and student placements, working closely with education institutions and professional bodies.

Government remains committed to growing the workforce to meet projected service demand. 

A big part of this is about enabling traineeships and student placements to help ensure preparation of a job-ready workforce and that also goes to the quality and safety of services received by participants.

This initiative will seek to explore ways to make better use of existing supports for traineeships, identify barriers to their uptake and develop strategies to address identified gaps and issues. This includes investigating ways that increase confidence and promote the value of student placements in disability services.

Consultation is already underway with disability support providers, universities and other disability stakeholders to define barriers to student placements and overtime will inform options for future work in this area.

We will be working across Commonwealth and state and territory governments to leverage existing initiatives such as JobTrainer to further support traineeships and student placements.

An extensive consultation process will guide option development and refinement. Timeframes for delivery of this initiative will be dependent on the options identified to grow student placements and traineeships.

That brings us to the end of priority 2 initiatives. Priority 3 initiatives are really focussed on some of the broad enablers of workforce development and growth so focussing on reducing red tape, facilitating new service models and innovation, and providing more market information about opportunities in the care and support sector.

We heard through the consultation process that there are many opportunities to support workforce growth including through red tape reduction and enhancing market information. Seven initiatives have been included in the Plan to support that innovation.

Initiative 10 is about improving alignment of provider regulation and worker screening across the care and support sector in a way that is trying to improve efficiency, reduce red tape but without compromising on quality and safety. 

As many of the people working in the sector will be aware, there are some similar services and supports provided across aged care, disability support and veterans’ care, indeed there are quite a number of providers that operate across one, two or three of those sectors, yet they are subject to separate and overlapping regulatory frameworks. This overlap in regulatory requirements does add additional requirements on the sector and additional burden on the sector.

Recent inquiries such as the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety have highlighted the need for a lifting of standards to ensure safety and quality of care in aged care. 

We’re intending to take a staged approach to engagement with the sector but also to regulatory reform, and through consultation and co-design develop up options that respond to issues that have arisen through relevant inquiries and to reduce regulatory burden wherever possible.

In the 2021-22 Budget there was funding of $12.3 million over two years for the first stage for some of these regulatory alignment activities across the aged care, disability and veterans’ care sectors. Information on the scope of these measures will be provided to the sector very shortly with a fact sheet and stakeholder consultation plan under development currently. I want to assure the sector there is strong commitment to close consultation and engagement around regulatory alignment and we’re very conscious it will be important to understand and unpack the detail in this area before making any changes.   

Initiative 11 is about continuing to improve NDIS pricing approaches to ensure effective operation of the market, including inn relation to thin markets

The government is committed to the development of an effective NDIS market that gives participants genuine choice and control over the supports they need as well as ensuring the financial sustainability of the Scheme for generations to come.

The government is conducting a project on pricing for the effective operation of the NDIS market by identifying potential options for different ways of pricing and payment arrangements to improve outcomes for participants as well as Scheme sustainability.

The department is likely to release a public consultation paper on this later in 2021 with further detail to follow. 

Initiative 12 is providing market demand information across the care and support sector to help identify new business opportunities.

There has already been quite a lot of work done the NDIS demand map and initiative 12 will seek to expand market information across the broader care and support sector – aged care and veterans’ care as well as the NDIS. This is intended to help support service providers to inform their decision making, including where they may wish to expand their operations or where they may choose to broaden so they operate across multiple parts of the care and support sector.

The Government announced in the 2020-21 Budget that it would expand the demand map to support that activity and the new care and support sector demand visualisation tool will encompass broad care and support services, including allied health. We’ll be engaging with the sector including through user acceptance testing around those initiatives.

The next initiative is on supporting participants to find more of the services and supports they need online. We know that some participants have fed back that they can face higher navigation costs when searching for services which meet their needs particularly in thin markets.

The NDIA is providing access to Application Programming Interfaces to help allow connections between registered providers and some NDIA systems and data to potentially support software developers to work with registered providers to provide better offerings to participants around the information services they have available. More work is being done to release more Application Programming Interfaces and allow other businesses to start accessing NDIA Application Programming Interfaces.

The Department of Social Services will work with the NDIA, provider peaks, participant peaks as well as participants to explore options that better assist participants and their families to have greater visibility the online products and services available in the market.

Initiative 14 is exploring options to support allied health professionals to work alongside allied health assistants as well as disability support workers to increase capacity and respond to participants’ needs.

We will be working to explore options to improve the interaction and interface between those three groups of workers to deliver effective multi-disciplinary support that better meets the needs of participants.

We’re very conscious that this will require really close consultation with the allied health services workforce, professional bodies, as well as participants and their families. We’re going to seek to do that across the second half this calendar year and guide the development of options to educate workers on roles, responsibilities and how that multi-disciplinary support model can be optimised. 

We’ll also explore as part of that whether there is additional professional guidance that may be required to support existing regulatory requirements on supervision and delegation of allied health services by allied health professionals.

Also exploring the development of tailored micro-credentials in the first half of 2022.

Initiative 15 is about enabling allied health professionals in rural and remote areas to access professional support via telehealth.

This is around allied health professionals who particularly might be working in rural and remote areas being able to access support from peers in urban areas and to get professional assistance in supporting them in how they provide services and supports to participants. 

We are going to be working with provider peaks, participant peaks, allied health providers and the workforce to highlight the availability of NDIA service options in this area. This will include the ability for providers to case conference and bill for multiple therapists without the participant needing to be present, so long as the participant approves.

Initiative 16, by no means last, is to help build the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community controlled sector to enhance culturally safe NDIS services.

We know that culturally safe NDIS services support Indigenous job seekers to overcome barriers to working in the care and support sector and also enables Indigenous participants to choose Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled services where available.

We are working with the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation to increase the number of its member Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations to register to deliver NDIS services and to expand the existing service offering of existing providers under the NDIS Ready Project which is in place to help improve access for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to the culturally safe supports.

So that brings us to the end of the description of all of the initiatives. There were a lot of questions throughout the presentation, thank you, almost 100 participants. I want to confirm if you wish to receive a copy of this presentation, please email the NDISworkforceplan@dss.gov.au and it will also be published on the department’s website. 

We've had a few questions in relation to ongoing consultation. We are intending to stand up some time-limited working groups for some initiatives which will include governments as well as the sector. And we'll continue to work with the Advisory Group on Market Oversight (AGMO), which is an advisory group to the department. It includes a number of representatives from across the sector. 

In terms of consultation in the development of the Plan, and there is a slide within the Plan on this, we had an open consultation during the course of last year via the Department of Social Services engage website which was promoted online as well as through the DSS market oversight advisory group and we did receive submissions as part of that process and there's been many separate engagements with different providers since that time ahead of finalising the plan. 

There was also a theme of questions around reducing duplication during implementation, and identifying connections and interdependencies between the projects. We have stood up an area within DSS that is coordinating the overall implementation of the NDIS National Workforce Plan and that's to ensure that internally within government we are connected. We've established a working group that involves all the other Commonwealth agencies that have an interest in different initiatives within the plan and will be meeting regularly with them. In terms of connections with the sector, I mentioned we will be standing up some different time-limited working groups. 

As was mentioned in the slide deck, there is an opportunity to write to us to flag your interest in getting involved in specific consultations around specific initiatives. We will be providing an update to the sector every three months as we seek to implement different aspects and initiatives under the plan. This will also provide an opportunity for you to flag connection points that we may not have identified. 

There was a question around what is meant by the term sector. What we mean is NDIS providers, aged care providers and veterans' care and support providers. That's broadly what we mean when I talk about the care and support sector. And the reason that we chose to use that terminology rather than just focusing on the NDIS sector, if you like, is because there are quite a number of providers that operate across all three. 

There's an increasing number of workers that operate across all three and we wanted to make sure that to try and build the NDIS workforce, that there aren't unintended consequences for aged care or veterans' care; but also that we're operating across government in a consistent way so that we can grow the whole sector to meet the needs of NDIS participants, older Australians and veterans in the years ahead. 

There's quite a number of questions around allied health and student placements. There's still a lot more consultation and engagement to come and we're very keen to set up some specific engagement with the allied health professional bodies and sector around student placements in the disability sector. We will set up specific sessions around that and we would encourage those bodies and providers that specialise in those particular areas to write to us if you have a particular interest in engaging in that work and then we will come out to you separately around those processes. 

Without pre-empting the outcome of consultation processes, what we would intend to look at is the opportunity for some very small scale pilots of initiatives that aim to support engagement between universities that offer allied health professional degrees and disability service providers to see whether we can get some more matching between universities and disability service providers around that. They're the kinds of things we want to explore with the sector but there will be other things as well. There was a suggestion in that regard around that we definitely need to also engage the education sector - such as universities and VET providers - our intention is absolutely to do that. 

There's multiple sectors involved in the rollout of the NDIS workforce plan. There's the care and support sector, there's the education sector, which includes universities and VET providers, there's also the employment provider sector which are delivering services and support to help job seekers to find employment. All of those three sectors will need to work with government to deliver initiatives under this plan. 

There's a question about what do we mean by 'providers' when we talk about NDIS, aged care and veterans providers. “Does that include allied health?” Short answer to that is yes, it absolutely includes allied health. What we mean is, NDIS providers delivering services and supports under the NDIS, which of course includes allied health. Or delivering services through aged care and through veterans care and obviously there's a spread of allied health and non-allied health services and support across all of those sectors. 

Okay, I'm just reading more of the questions, they're coming in thick and fast. 

One of the other things that has come out in the questions is around pay and attracting workers through paying workers well. The plan doesn’t include pay and that is because there are industrial instruments that apply that get reviewed through existing processes across our economy, and that's where pay is set and changed and varied. 

The Plan seeks to enable providers to be efficient as possible to help address regulatory duplication and overlap to help assist providers to reduce the cost of finding workers to work in the sector and support their training and learning and development needs and through doing that, enabling more efficient and effective business models for providers to operate in. That gives providers the maximum flexibility around how they choose to operate their business models, including across multiple programs – NDIS, aged care, veterans care – and also enables them to make choices about whether they pay award rates, above award rates, negotiate enterprise agreements. 

There's been feedback around the need for ongoing consultation with allied health as part of the process. I just want to reinforce, including in relation to public hospitals, I want to reinforce that we will absolutely include, as part of the consultations in relation to allied health, those issues. 

I know there are quite a few AH reps who have joined this session, just to reinforce that we, through the NDIS workforce plan that's been launched by the Minister, it is intended to be a plan covering all aspects of the NDIS workforce. And of course there are many varied roles providing supports and services under the NDIS, and of course across the broader care and support sector. And so, that's why the language in the Plan talks about the sector as a whole. Yes, there are some specific initiatives that have been called out in relation to allied health, but the plan is most certainly intended to be a broad plan that's supporting the sector as a whole. 

Some questions have been raised about states and territories, both in terms of engagement with them and also resources and complementary initiatives that they may have that are operating or intending to operate that will work with this plan. We will this week be engaging with state and territory officials and they have been engaged all the way along in the development of this NDIS workforce plan and disability ministers from states and territories endorsed the NDIS workforce plan. 

Our intention is very much to work in a very collaborative way with state and territory officials as we seek to implement the plan to look at things that are being implemented and the sequencing of action in this plan as well as complementary initiatives that states and territories may be, of their own accord, implementing within their jurisdiction that are aimed at similar things. I'm aware for example, that there is and has been a campaign in WA for example around increasing the NDIS workforce and a public communication campaign around that. We've been having conversations with them around their learnings from that campaign. We're doing further work with other states and territories around other initiatives. 

To reassure everyone, between the Commonwealth and the states, we will be working very closely as we seek to implement the plan and will be providing an update around implementation of the plan to state and territory and commonwealth disability ministers every six months. 

There was a question around initiative 10 and is there a reason that mental health support is not included in the list for working across sectors. Many of you may already be aware, the National Skills Commission was tasked by the Prime Minister to do a broader piece around looking at care and support sector, looking at the skill needs, and doing analysis of what the requirements would be for the sector now and into the future. That review is intended to report to the relevant minister in September and will then inform further policy responses by government. 

The NDIS National Workforce Plan is a significant plan covering the next four years but that of course does not mean that there may not be other initiatives that are initiated by government or decisions taken by government with respect to further work across the care and support sector in light of other reviews. I'm very conscious that the Royal Commission continues to be underway, ongoing in relation to disability and of course as implementation of the government response to the Royal Commission on Aged Care continues over the years ahead there'll be lots of opportunity to focus on other connection points.

There's been a question around the BLCW program and some feedback around the assistance provided in their particular state. BLCW program was reviewed ahead of budget this year. It found that the program was working well and that the areas where it could continue to be refined, its ongoing connection with more and more providers across the sector, looking at the cross connection with employment providers, with the education sector which I mentioned – universities and VET providers, with aged providers and veterans care providers – and that's very much going to be the focus going forward. 

We're certainly happy always to receive feedback from the sector around any gaps or concerns around the delivery of any of our programs including BLCW program. Please feel free to provide us feedback and we can follow up with the provider in relation to that. 

To reiterate, if we don’t get to all questions, we will analyse all of the chat that's come through and where we can, provide some further information on our website and certainly your feedback also helps to inform the way that we approach implementation going forward. 

There's some feedback suggesting that we need to consider specialised skills, such as psychosocial disability and working with high levels of complexity. And I want to reinforce that there is a review of the qualifications underway, I mentioned the National Skills Commission doing work around the skills required. I mentioned that the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission is also looking through the implementation of the Capability Framework around the skills needed to work in particular roles and the tools to support them. 

As part of the micro-credential project, we're going to be mapping the particular skills, working very closely with the sector around this, to map the roles that exist across the NDIS, that will help inform both the common understanding of the roles across the sector, but also where we need to focus our energy and effort in terms of the development of micro-credentials. Thanks for the feedback around highlighting the importance of some of those skills sets that go to participants with more complex needs. We definitely agree that's an area of focus and we'll seek to put more fidelity on where we focus, first through the consultation process with the sector. 

There's another theme coming out on pricing. There's some feedback around pricing needing to consider incentivising private practice supporting allied health student placements and looking at modelling the impact of NDIS charger rates on public health workforce allied health workforce. 

There's going to be a lot of work done around continuing to explore ways that we can improve pricing and payment arrangements in the NDIS over time. We will be engaging with the sector to draw out what the key issues are from your perspective around pricing and payment arrangements and seek your input on ways that can continue to be improved so I won't respond to very specific things as part of this session, but we certainly would welcome active feedback from the sector as part of that project. 

There's a question around whether there'll be consultation as part of the implementation of the workforce plan with relevant peaks. And the answer is yes, it won't be just through the Advisory Group on Market Oversight (AGMO) – we will engage with peaks throughout implementation. We wanted to provide a broad opportunity through this session for any people from across the sector to participate so you could hear as an initial take on the implementation of the Workforce Plan, where our thinking is at. 

But obviously it's very early days in the implementation of particular measures, and as you will see in the slides there's a different pace of rollout for different initiatives and for those who write to us to express interest that would be a good way for us to get information out to you about when particular initiatives will be consulted on so that you can actively participate.  

There's a question around can we include mental health peaks in the consultation, not just disability peaks. Yes, that's absolutely intended and I think we've actually got some mental health representation as part of the Advisory Group on Market Oversight. 

Okay, I think we've covered the main themes from the feedback that's come through in the chat. So I'll just do a last call out for any final questions otherwise we will wrap up this session but just to reinforce a few things. 

First, thank you very much to all of the sector for active participation throughout the development of the NDIS workforce plan. It is a significant plan, it's something I know that the Minister is very keen for the department to actively work with the sector around implementation to ensure we get it right, and we are absolutely committed to doing that. You will have seen that in the Plan itself we've made a commitment that it will be every three months for the first year, an opportunity for broad-based update to the sector about implementation. Likely to be a similar format to this, although we welcome feedback about how useful this session is and whether there are ways that we can continue to improve that, so please feel free to provide us with that feedback. 

We will however, in between those broad-based update sessions, be engaging with the sector around particular initiatives and we welcome your active engagement and thank you very much for your time today. 

There's been a question around how do we provide feedback, could we give a point or person of contact. The slide deck itself will include how you can contact us. You'll be able to look on the website for that, but as I mentioned before, NDISworkforce@dss.gov.au is the email address that you can email if you have any questions or want to express interest in being consulted or involved in consultations around particular initiatives. We'll send out the slide deck to those who participated in this, or you can also write to us at the email address I gave and we'll send out the slide deck to you. 

Thank you very much for everyone on your questions. Really appreciate that and for joining this session. Have a great afternoon everyone.

NDIS National Workforce Plan 2021-2025

Sector briefing 14 December 2021 transcript

Good afternoon everyone welcome and thank you for joining us today for the sector briefing on the NDIS National Workforce Plan: 2021-2025.

I’d like to start by acknowledging that we are meeting today Traditional Lands around the country and I want to acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians of those Lands and pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging and extend those respects to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples joining today.

My name is Luke Mansfield and I am the Group Manager in the Department of Social Services responsible for Strategic Policy, Markets and Safeguards. I am really pleased that so many of you have been able to join for this briefing today, we really welcome your ongoing interest in the Workforce Plan and are keen to ensure there is ongoing good consultation with the sector as we seek to implement the Plan’s initiatives. 

To help the flow of the presentation, can I just ask everyone ensure they are on mute. We will seek to have a short question and answer session at the end of this presentation and may also produce some frequently asked questions depending on what questions are asked at that time and post that along with a copy of this presentation and transcript on the Department of Social Services website.

Today, we are going to showcase implementation progress on four of the Workforce Plan’s initiatives:

Initiative 1 – the A Life Changing Life campaign; 

Initiative 5 – the Boosting the Local Care Workforce Program and workforce optimisation within that;

Initiative 6 – Micro-credentials; and

Initiative 10 – Regulatory alignment and worker screening.

For a brief recap, the NDIS National Workforce Plan was launched by Minister Reynolds on 10 June 2021, and provides the framework to ensure there is a responsive and capable workforce to support the disability sector. 

The Workforce Plan sets out three priorities and sixteen initiatives to drive better workforce and participant outcomes and growth. This includes:

Strengthening entry pathways and promoting the benefits of working in the care and support sector to attract more workers, 

Training and supporting the workforce; and 

Encouraging the effective operation of the market including reducing red tape.

Along with the initiatives that you’ll hear about today, we have made significant progress in implementing the Workforce Plan.

A targeted, pre-filled JobActive jobs board that was developed and published on the care and support jobs website. This directs job seekers to jobs in the care and support sector.

Additionally, through the communications campaign partnership that we have with SEEK, targeted jobs boards for aged care, disability and veterans’ support have been developed and published on the website.

We have expanded the remit of the Boosting Local Care Workforce Regional Coordinators and Subject Matter Specialists to include aged care and veterans’ care providers, as well as working with NDIS providers, educational institutions and employment service providers.

We have also commenced early work to develop the micro-credentials framework, skills passport and professional networks.

Aged care legislation has been changed to recognise NDIS worker screening clearances. This makes it easier for aged care providers and workers, staff and volunteers that support NDIS participants. Information is being disseminated on the changes and enforcement.

The Department of Health has established a cross-agency taskforce within the department and is working with us and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to progress implementation of regulatory alignment and also a single worker screening check across the sector.

We have been actively promoting available telehealth services to support allied health professionals, particularly those in rural and remote communities, to access professional support and supervision remotely.

We’ve seen continued support for Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations to become registered to deliver NDIS services through the NDIS Ready project.

57 Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations and Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations across Australia will receive Indigenous Business Support Funding grants, worth $22,000 each.

The grants support these organisations to register and deliver NDIS services, including engaging business and technical advice to develop better support systems to deliver NDIS services. The funding also provides an opportunity for organisations to scope future Aboriginal-led disability solutions within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

The NDIS National Workforce Plan quarterly update from October 2021 contains further details on these recent achievements in implementation and initiatives, and is available on the Department of Social Services’ website: www.dss.gov.au/ndisworkforceplan. All one word.

In terms of consultation we have been conducting targeted stakeholder engagement to support the design and implementation of Workforce Plan initiatives. There are a range of consultation and engagement activities underway or planned over the next 12 months across those 16 initiatives within the Plan.

Consultation on work to improve alignment of regulation across the care and support sectors has already commenced.

Initial workshops with providers and peak bodies were conducted in October. A background paper was also published on 6 October.

The second stage of consultation opened on 15 November and will occur through to 17 December this year. 

Consultation has also commenced to consider the implementation of an enforceable care and support sector Code of Conduct applicable to providers and workers across aged care, veterans’ care and disability support. 

Consultation findings from these processes will be released in early 2022.

The department has also hosted initial workshops with members of key provider peaks including National Disability Services, Ability First Australia, and National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations in regard to developing a whole of care and support online demand map tool.

Engagement is ongoing with allied health peaks, allied health sector, universities and training organisations with regard to increasing allied student placements in the disability sector. On 10 February we are setting a roundtable specifically to work with the allied health peaks around initiatives within the Workforce Plan.

Consultation with providers, employers and participants will also commence in January to inform the micro-credential and training, professional network and skills passport projects. There will be a coordinated approach to these consultations and information will be provided on the DSS website for people to register if they would like to be involved.

In addition to these targeted consultations, the department will continue to consult with its Advisory Group on Market Oversight, which meets on a quarterly basis and provides insights to us around the implementation of the Workforce Plan and learnings.

The department has also established a Disability Workforce Industry Working Group that reports to the Advisory Group that I just mentioned to support implementation of the Workforce Plan. The industry-led Working Group will provide a forum to collaborate, co‑design and jointly implement initiatives. 

The working group is co-chaired between the department and National Disability Services who will occupy this position for 12 months before another service provider is elected. 

The Working Group also includes representatives from Ability First, Alliance20, Community Services Industry Alliance, Boosting the Local Care Workforce and the Human Services Skills Organisation.

Their first meeting is due to occur tomorrow.

We’ve really valued the insights provided in the submissions to the Joint Standing Committee on the NDIS, as well as the evidence provided at public hearings, as well as the input that we have received through all the consultations that I mentioned are underway and we will certainly be considering the recommendations in those submissions and in through other feedback that has been provided as we seek to implement the Workforce Plan. 

So that’s it in terms of a broad overview so we’ll now move into specific updates on those four initiatives I mentioned at the start so I’ll handover to Jo Hegerty to do a deep dive into the A Life Changing Life campaign. Thanks Jo. 

Thanks Luke. Can everyone hear me ok? Yep, great. Some familiar faces in the crowd there. Very happy to be here today and presenting some updates on the A Life Changing Life campaign. I think last time we spoke was just prior to launch. If you’ll bear with me I will just very quickly run through for anyone who is not familiar with the campaign, I will just very quickly run through our objectives broadly and just give a little introduction to the thinking behind the campaign. We launched on the 15^th of August which is unbelievably four months ago now which is pretty crazy. So yeah, just to remind everyone where we’re at, we found when we were doing our developmental research, people, when we interviewed job seekers, they really had very low understanding or awareness of care and support work and we found that people were not really considering this as a place to go looking for a job or a career. 

We also found people had a really inaccurate understanding of what the work entailed and there was a little bit of hesitancy or you know fear I guess about what the work actually involved and people they had very outdated impressions of care and support work across disability, aged care and veterans’ support. So the research told us that we very much needed to disrupt this perception, you would have seen from the previous slide that the creative that we have gone for is very much edgy, youthful, there’s a lot of energy to it and that is to disrupt that current perception that people have.   

Broadly speaking we have four objectives for the campaign and that is to:

Raise awareness of care and support work, including the wide range of roles that are available and the wide range of people who are required in the sector. We are also looking to raise awareness of the diverse pathways into jobs and careers.

Also to encourage target audiences to actually take action so that could be going to our campaign website, sharing the resources, talking to other support workers or actually applying for a job.

And then our fourth objective is to raise awareness of the support that new recruits need from employers. So when people are starting to think more about this sector what do they then need to know about the roles themselves. 

There is a tiny lag on the slides.

So just a recap on who we are talking to. We have three campaign target audiences. So as I mentioned, job seekers are currently, when we spoke broadly, nationally to job seekers, they weren’t currently considering working in the sector even when they have the right skills and qualities. 

So the first target audience that we have been talking to is tertiary students. Includes high school students considering their post-high school options.

University and TAFE students who are currently studying allied health, nursing, psychology, sports medicine, social work that kind of thing. But also students who are studying the creative arts which could include dance, music and visual arts. 

We just found that within our broad, it was around five percent of people, yes there is a comment there can we have a copy of the slide deck, absolutely we will share that afterwards, yes so we found that within those cohorts there were much higher rates of people who were interested in taking up these roles.

Our second audience, apologies for the lag, our second audience is what we are calling searchers. And searchers are people in their 20s or teens who they may be working in casual or ‘filler’ jobs, they may be working in hospitality or retail, and they may be looking for work. They’re looking for a job they can sort of leave at home, not necessarily looking for a career. They might have not really have found their forever role yet. There they are, searchers. Here we’ve got Amber and Stevie, Amber is a classic searcher. She was working in retail and she just found that it didn’t resonate with her at all, and she says, and there is a case study where I strongly encourage you to go and watch that case study because it’s really lovely, the first day on the job as a disability support worker she just knew that she had found the place to be.   

So our third audience is transitioners. Now this is quite a broad audience. It tends to skew a little bit older. The previous two audiences tend to be under 35 and this audience tends to skew a little bit older here. 

So these are people who are looking for a change in their employment. And it could be that they have had a career or a profession that they have really enjoyed, but now they’re looking for something, and they’re quite well set up now, and perhaps they’re looking to continue working and take their skills and attributes into a new, more meaningful profession.

This cohort also includes recent arrivals to Australia, recent migrants to Australia who through our testing were found to be much more likely to take up working with older people.

Also people who are looking to come back into the paid workforce after time spent caring for family, so what we call informal carers. That could also include parents who are looking to come back to work who don’t perhaps have other skills and qualifications.

Also within this audience are people with disability who are looking for work and have a natural affinity towards care and support work, purely for the fact that a lot of those barriers and misconceptions just aren’t there because they have had exposure. 

So as mentioned the campaign launched on the 15^th of August. We’ve recently, we’ve had two bursts of activity, our first, so across the whole campaign which finishes on the 4^th of June we’ve got five bursts of activity. The first, third and fifth have television and then the two in-between, so the first, third and fifth have the full suite so television, out-of-home, digital mobile, Google search, things like if you’re watching catch up TV it will pop up on your TV, if you’re listening to a podcast it may pop into your podcast as well. Then the second and fourth are the same apart from without television. So our initial research we’ve had a burst of tracking research to tell us how our ads on TV perform. What we’ve found is they’re proving to be very engaging with our target audiences, which is obviously fantastic. People are responding really well to the creative and we are meeting that objective of getting people to think “oh wow, this sector is really dynamic and vibrant, and I want to know more”. Of course, the objective there is from the good engagement that people will take action. 

So the call to action for the campaign is to drive people towards the care and support jobs website. We’re pleased to report we’ve had more than 1.3 million views, these numbers are for the end of November so we’d expect they have increased again. So more than 1.3 million views since mid-August and around half a million unique views which is individuals which is really great.

The most popular webpage is the Now hiring page because our call to action is very much the care and support sector is now hiring, go to this website and then you can find out more. So that’s really great to see we’ve got 56,000 total views there and what we’re finding is people are spending the most amount of their time on the page which discusses what you need to start working. So that shows high engagement and it’s a very transferrable space that they’re in and they’re ready to start thinking about how they might transition themselves into the sector. 

We’ve had nearly 4 million unique users so therefore 4 million individuals would have seen content through our Facebook network, so Facebook network includes Instagram. That’s a really great result. We’re also seeing really good results on Snapchat and LinkedIn. LinkedIn tends to skew more to our older transitioner audiences and of course Snapchat is for the students and younger audiences. 

A really important part of our strategy has been to partner because we don’t just want it to be government telling people this is a great vibrant sector. So we have also partnered with a couple of really important organisations to help us get that message across. So we’ve got a partnership with Junkee. For anyone who is not familiar with this it is a news website for youths. They call themselves 1.8 million informed young people is the audience that Junkee has. If you look in the top of the slide that is what is called a website takeover, I like to make that joke that it makes me feel really old because it’s very hectic but that’s what the kids like. It’s very, this is a really great partnership for us because what Junkee has told us through their own research they are finding that young people are really looking for roles that will you know help them feel good about themselves and also help them live their lives the way they want to live them, so it was kind of a meeting of minds. That partnership is going really, really well. We kicked off on the 18^th of October and we had the first of two articles go live and performing really, really well. Last count it was around the 50,000 thousand mark of people who had seen that first article.

The bottom tile is our partnership with Year 13. This has just launched recently and we’re still waiting for an update on how it’s tracking. Again, Year 13 is a, they have a 1.4 million audience base of young people including the end of school audience which is obviously really crucial to us to capture and also really difficult to reach. What they’ve created for us, and there is a link in the slide deck which you’re welcome to have a look at, is called a learning module, so they’ve taken, through this trusted website that people are already engaging with, they’ve basically turned a lot of our content into a kind of learning process for people to explore the sector, find our more and it links out to the various resources that are available. 

Our third live partnership is with SEEK. We held our second SEEK webinar, I hope some people were able to attend, it was on how to write a good job ad. It was a really fantastic, really actionable, practical workshop for employers to help them write job ads in a way that will A perform really, really well through that SEEK platform but also through any other platform, and also noting that SEEK attracts up to 83 per cent of our younger audiences. I think the feedback on that has been really great and we are in the process of putting that recording up onto the website and happy to email that out to anyone who would like to view that.   

A really core, actually I should mention, my team will kill me if I don’t, we have two more SEEK webinars coming up and we’d love for you to register for those. In February we have communicating your employer brand, that’s your EVP, it’s your employer value proposition, that’s you know, how to stand out, how to really attract people, and become an employer of choice. Then in mid-April we have broadening your talent pool, and that’s very much going to be a point-in-time seminar that’s going to look more at, because by April we’re going to have a completely different landscape, absolutely Caitlin, so really would encourage you to join those and we’re happy to share the link for the registrations if you’re not already receiving our communications.     

Now I’ve got a picture here of Ross, Ross he used to run a recycling business, he’s a classic transitioner. He is, he used to, yeah he had a recycling business and the bottom fell out of that market and he thought well what can I do and he says he found a little quiz somewhere online and it said he had a bit of a first responder type personality and when he explored it further he decided he wanted to be a nurse. But while he’s studying his nursing degree he is also working in an aged care facility and he just loves it. His story is really lovely. So we’ve published, that’s an example of one of the many case studies that we’ve published on our website recently. We’ve also got another story about Rodney and Colin. Colin really wanted to go to Mardi Gras, and his support worker Rodney supported him through his whole support network to get him there and that’s another really lovely story. Then another one that we’ve published recently is Geoff and Ruwan who you saw earlier, we’ve dived more into Ruwan’s process and his transition into the sector. He used to run businesses and he’s been working in aged care for quite a long time and he particularly enjoys working with veterans. 

We’ve just published about four more and if time permits at the end of this presentation we’d love to play you one of our culturally and linguistically diverse video case study that we’ve produced with Jackie and Maria so I’ll try to speak quickly. 

So we’ve had really amazing engagement in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander space. Ministers Reynolds and Wyatt issued a media release on the 30^th of September and we’ve had some really good media coverage. On Facebook we’ve had a post that features disability support worker Clinton, it just, every time we’re on air it just absolutely goes off, heaps of comments, lots of engagement, people just loving it. 

Lisa and Greg here have appeared in the Koori Mail on the front page of the employment supplement that they had. We’ve had interviews on Noongar radio and SBS NITV, we’ve engaged a campaign spokesperson Carly Wallace who also works for First Peoples Disability Network. 

In the culturally and linguistically diverse space, we also issued a joint media release with Reynolds, Colbeck and Hawke that was on the 18^th of November. Jackie and Maria who are pictured here were published in the Philippine Times, we understand that there is more coverage of them to come. We have also published a story about Indy who is Indian, we’ve also got Hanan, she is now online, she’s Arabic, and of course Jackie as well.

We’ve got more coming in Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese and Vietnamese. 

So what’s next? Very quickly I’ll just let you know what’s on the horizon for 2022. We’re exploring more partnerships through our PR activities. We’re looking at Libraries Australia is one, and we are also producing, connecting with the career advisers network and also exploring partnerships with Open Universities and trying to get into some of those student organisations including international students.   

We’ve got three more advertising bursts to come. The first is in late-January to mid-February, the next is in late-March to mid-April, and then we’ve got mid-May to June 4. We’ll have out-of-home for all three, we weren’t able to able to do out-of-home until now because everyone was in their home so we’re very excited about that. We’re looking forward to seeing some of our beautiful assets up there. As I mentioned, two more SEEK webinars, we’ve just issued the first of the monthly sector newsletters, if you’re not receiving them, please let us know and we can add you to the list. We’re preparing a career adviser toolkit with things like quizzes and videos, just a little package we can provide to career advisers so that they can be talking to young people about their options including allied health. 

I seem to have lost the ability to hit the next slide, but on the very last page are some links to, next one please Caitlin, links to how you can stay connected with us including our email address. And how did I go? Do we have time to play the video? Yes, go for it. Thank you, I’m actually going to let Caitlin the wizard take over.

Video plays.

Great. Thanks Luke. 

Thanks Jo, thanks very much for taking everyone through that presentation. I just encourage all providers to check out the care and support jobs website to try and look at ways that you can leverage the campaign to attract workers to your organisation. I’m really pleased that we’ve got about 170 people on the line with us today and hopefully others will be able to look at this material afterwards and we’ll post it to our website. So next up we’re going to move to Initiative 5 which is Boosting the Local Care Workforce and workforce optimisation and I’m pleased that Renae Lowry has been able to join us and she’ll be taking us through the next initiative. Over to you Renae. 

Thanks Luke. I feel like I’m hearing voice only, I don’t think we were able to get my camera but hopefully the words will speak for themselves. I guess just a little bit of a background for those of you who don’t know Boosting the Local Care Workforce, we were announced in the 2017-18 budget as a program primarily designed to help local organisations to build sustainable businesses and to grow their workforce. The program was extended in this year for a further 2 years and expanded, as Luke mentioned earlier, to cover the entire care and support workforce, including Aged Care and Veterans’ Affairs providers, as well as other key enablers for the sector, such as RTOs and Employment Services providers. 

We have a network of 25 regional consultants around the country including three subject matter specialists. So we have an Allied Health specialist, a Workforce specialist, and a Skills specialist, as well as a National Policy Manager. 

Our team have been, over this time, engaging directly with market and we have engaged to date with almost 9000 care and support providers around the country in a variety of ways. So we do that through roundtables and forums, working groups, and direct one to one engagement and support. Primarily our focus is to be an enabler across three main areas. So we look to support organisations to come together to attract and recruit people to the care and support workforce, skill and develop their existing workforce, and optimise their workforce for long-term success.

While we’re down communicating with providers in operations, we also collect and collate that intelligence we receive from the market, consolidate it and take it back up to the Department of Social Services, Department of Health and Department of Veterans’ Affairs to help inform ongoing policy development for the sector. 

Next slide please. I’m sure everyone at the moment is seeing the media and all the attention and rhetoric around significant workforce challenges right across the country and right across most sectors. We’re hearing other countries referring to it as the “great resignation” or the “big quit”, but whatever you want to call it, the reality is that COVID-19 has resulted in strong competition for workers both because of closed borders, but also likely the upheaval that has gone on in people’s lives and caused them to re-think the things that they value in life and in work. 

As the NDIS has rolled out and the general population is living longer we’ve seen the need to grow this workforce increase, with most of the conversations that we have, focused around attracting and recruiting people to the sector. Though today, I’m going to focus not on recruitment, but on the optimisation element, because the churn in our sector is also very real. So we know that the churn rate, annually, of people in the NDIS is between 17-25%, and this is compared with an average of 12% in other sectors. So obviously, really high rate that if we can keep more people in the operations in the sector, that obviously means less people needing to enter it. Next slide please.

During our engagement with the market we are always extremely fortunate to see some amazing practices occurring and in particular, we have recently gone to market to look for organisations who have been focused on optimizing their existing workforce. These, or all organisations who have dug in to understand the needs of their staff and prioritized the experience that they’re having within their workforce. We found when we were looking for this best practice, that there are really four key elements to success when undertaking a workforce optimisation process. If you remove any of these key elements, the success process was obviously severely undermined. 

The first element we discovered was that every success story had a “navigator”. In many cases, this person was a CEO, or executive member, and almost always they were a very practical person. They always understood the operations of their business and how it worked, and they were often a very determined individual who was persistent and consistent in their approach to driving the project forward. In some cases these were very personable people, and they were able to support people to come on the journey but they were also very task orientated people and were able to keep all of the moving parts of the process going, so real project managers at heart. 

The second element in these success stories we witnessed was that they had to have a strong vision. So they were the kinds of people who could see a perfect future state and they could express this vision, they could hold on to it throughout implementation and no matter how difficult things became, they could keep conveying the vision. And it often, in the cases that we witnessed, it often did become quite difficult. These people understood that their role was to use the vision to provide a sense of security and stability and that staff needed to buy into that. That vision gave staff hope and allowed them to buy in to a more secure future within the organisation, so see that the investment that the organisation was portraying in this vision was about sustaining them and their value to the organisation. These navigators also used this vision to help in their upward management to boards, shareholders and owners, and take the approach that it was an investment decision. So the vision needed to see beyond the short-term budget pressures. In the case of NDIS, it needed to see beyond participant planning cycles as well. So it meant that the organisation bore the risk when participants exercised choice and control and moved out to other organisations. And I guess the thing that I’m most impressed with these organisations, is that we witnessed them really being very, very brave, particularly throughout COVID and an unknown future. But they used that vision to guide them through those risk factors. 

The third element was they were all very impressive at thinking with intent. So this ties in closely with the vision, but really it separates out that strategy versus tactics. So organisations looked really closely at their current state and their future desired state and mapped out a really clear process for how they were going to get there. In some instances organisations came across barriers they were not expecting. One organisation, really interesting case study, had 80% of their workforce were casual, they wanted to flip that to having over 80% permanent. They thought their staff were going to love it and that it was going to solve all of their retention issues. But the reality was that staff were actually really sceptical and suspicious and went straight to the union. So it was not something the organisation had anticipated would happen, but when they thought with intent they were able to really collaborate with the union and staff and allay those concerns. That organisation has now got over 90% of their staff on permanent and they’ve reduced their churn rate to under 25% and it had been over 30% when they were casualised. And I guess if you’re looking for monetary value, on top of this, they reported annual salary savings of over 200,000 thousand dollars per every 100 staff they had. 

The fourth and final element is additional capabilities. One thing we often see, and I’ve experienced personally in this sector, is a make do and mend approach, and we always want to do things in-house. All of these success stories we witnessed, they had a clear understanding that success was actually predicated on them bringing in additional supports where they were able to identify their internal deficits. So external enablers were often critical when looking at existing workforce skilling. One provider we met with were able to recruit staff without too much problem, had the right values and attributes but didn’t necessarily have the skills or experience required to hit the ground running. This organisation brought in an AASN, an Australian Apprenticeship Support Network provider, who helped guide them through the process of traineeships as a means to on-board and train staff new to the industry. A 100% of their new recruits taken on through this process were retained after six months in their tenure. The AASN was also able to support that organisation to upskill their existing staff to supervise their trainees thereby creating an opportunity for internal skills growth as well. There are a number of opportunities that we look at in terms of thinking about external providers and how we can support staff to gain skills and qualifications. And we will come on to talk about microcredentials as well, later in the presentation. Many of this is supported by government funding, but it is a complex area to navigate, so organisations do need to think about how they can access that external support and to fill those capability gaps. Next slide.

Just finally, some of the things that we know are really critical for organisations to think of, if optimisation is a priority for them, and that’s you really need to line up your leaders and your internal champions. They’re going to be critical for your success if you’re looking to optimise, particularly in this current market. And they will need to be persistent and consistent in driving through that change. Great workforce optimisation also requires a level of organisation maturity to champion it and to think from the perspective of managing risk rather than avoiding it. That’s also just a great opportunity to build internal capability. 

But organisations have got to be honest, you’ve got to facilitate a growth mindset, and it’s not a one touch process, you don’t get to do it once and then say it’s done. You always have to be constantly looking at how you can grow and optimise, and grow and optimise to make the most out of it. And if you do the cost benefit analysis, it’s always going to be much better to invest in retaining staff and training them, rather than recruiting new ones, particularly when we see, as mentioned on those previous slides, the volume of applications for roles coming right down. 

And just, like a final message, as I mentioned, we do have 25 staff around the country, and if you’re in any doubt about how we can help, please don’t hesitate to reach out. And we’re always happy to talk and share ideas, as well as latest trends on recruitment, retention, optimisation and skilling. As mentioned, we do have lots of events, we publish those events on the Boosting website so please head over there if you want to, have a look at what we’ve got coming up in your area and there’s also a contact us section so if you just pop your details in that contact section, someone will reach out to you and we can talk about how the program can support and engage you in that optimisation process too.

Great, thanks very much Renae. Now we were going to move to microcredentials, but just conscious of time, so given we’re going to do some more significant consultation around that early next year, we might come back to microcredentials at our next update, in probably March so that you can hear more about that beyond the consultation activity that we undertake. So instead, we’ll keep moving on to Initiative 10 which is regulatory alignment and worker screening, and I’m going to now hand to Paul Miller to take us through that work. Thanks very much Paul.

Thanks very much Luke, and thanks very much everyone for giving us the chance to talk about this. Just trying to give you an update on where this regulatory alignment work is up to at the moment. So if I could just have the first slide there Caitlin.

This kind of is a very simple slide meant to capture, if you like, what the issue is, the current state, the whole regulatory alignment work is trying to address. Effectively, what we see is that there’s similar care and support services delivered across these three programs, I guess you might call them Aged Care, NDIS and DVA. So they’re similar care and support services but they have totally different regulatory requirements and quality and safeguards arrangements in place. So I guess the issue could be looked at from different perspectives. 

From a participant or consumer perspective, it can be that there are different levels of protections and quality and safeguard arrangements across the sectors for the similar services. 

From a provider perspective, you’ll note in this little Venn diagram here, particularly for providers who are kind of operating in more than one sector, they have to meet more than one set of regulatory requirements and understand more than one set of rules and often get different audits or report several times on the one issue, so that’s sort of from the provider’s perspective as well. 

So for a whole range of reasons, the current state has people with differences across these sectors when in fact, the services are very similar. So if you could just move on Caitlin, to the next slide. 

So recognising this in the 21-22 Budget, government committed 12.3 million dollars really to do two things. One was to develop a roadmap for the medium to long term in terms of regulatory alignment, and the second was specifically to progress some work in worker screening and a Code of Conduct that I’ll come back to. 

In relation to the roadmap, a Joint Regulatory Alignment Cross-Agency Taskforce was set up and is being, it’s in the Department of Health at the moment. But effectively, while it’s in the Department of Health, there’s a whole lot of departments, including Department of Social Services, Department of Veterans’ Affairs and the two regulators, the Aged Care Quality and Safeguards Commission and the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission are involved in that work in terms of progressing that roadmap. Next slide thanks.

So in terms of the roadmap work and what’s happening under there, the key thing that’s happening, and Luke kind of mentioned it so I won’t dwell on it too long, but there’s a whole lot of sector consultation going on in terms of regulatory alignment, is it a good thing, what are the areas that we could align better, and how would we go about doing that. 

The consultations effectively have been so far in two stages, the first stage is really asking that very basic question about how people are experiencing the regulation in the different programs, and whether they think alignment is a good idea. 

And then the second stage, which is going on sort of now and is still ongoing till the 17^th of December, and there’s also a survey that goes, is going out, will continue into January that people can fill in. But effectively, that’s looking at a bit more detail around the different regulatory elements such as registration and audits and so on, complaints, and how people think they could be aligned better. So those two consultations have been going on and findings I think as Luke mentioned, will come out early in 2022 and it will feed into the development of that regulatory alignment roadmap. Next slide please Caitlin.

I just thought I’d touch on briefly, three projects that are actually being led in DSS that kind of are supporting that regulatory alignment work over time. The first is the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Framework Review, the second is looking at Disability Service Grants and Procurements, and the third is looking at Consumer Information. I’ll just very briefly go through each of those. Caitlin next slide please.

So in terms of the Framework Review, so this relates, basically the Framework outlines all the regulatory kind of approach within the NDIS, so one of the circles, the programming circles that was in the very first slide, and effectively the Framework was set up in 2016 and agreed to by all states and territories and then has been progressively implemented as the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission has been stood up and has expanded its remit to all states and territories. And as a part of setting that up initially, it was agreed that there would be a review of the Framework to see that it still was being fit for purpose once it had been implemented because it was the first time, in a sense, that a lot of these regulatory requirements and regulatory processes had been one, put in the one agency, but also, had been run at a national level in the way that it had. And of course, the NDIS itself was new as well. So it was appropriate to review the Framework. That’s effectively going to start this year. 

In terms of actually trying to, starting to get a consultant on board, they probably won’t be on board until early next year. And then during 2022, there will be the review of Framework and all the different elements within that Framework. 

In terms of the scope for that review, the Minister signed off on an early version of the scope, that’s been worked through with states and territories and Disability Ministers will be given a final copy of the provisional scope fairly soon, and we’ll be conducting, we will be engaging the consultant to conduct the review based on what we’ve called a provisional scope because something that’s really quite important in this is making sure the kind of sector is comfortable with scope. So once the consultant comes on board, one of their first tasks will be to test that scope with the sector to ensure that it does cover everything we need to in terms of the setting up the review and giving us a program to work forward in undertaking the review. Next slide please Caitlin.

The second piece of work is looking at grants and procurements within the Department of Social Services and effectively, at the moment, the current state is a bit similar to the different sectors I guess, that different grants have different quality and safeguard arrangements in place. So this whole project is about looking at those different arrangements and seeing if we can gain greater alignment for the similar reasons, consistency of levels of protection and also making it easier for providers to sort of meet the requirements and those kind of things. So similar kind of logic as to why we’re doing this, but it’s just looking at it in the grants and procurements space. 

So initially it was whether we can align it in the grants space but then also, how that might align with say the NDIS quality and safeguard arrangements, and then in the slightly longer term more broadly with arrangements across the three program areas in line with the broader regulatory alignment approach. So we’re currently, this is the project we’re conducting internal to DSS at the moment and we’re currently developing a framework as to how you might approach that sort of alignment work. And then once that’s been developed and socialised and kind of worked through within DSS, it’ll then feed in to the broader alignment work. Next one please.

The Consumer Information Project, this is really about understanding what type of consumer information is really going to help people navigate. In the first instance what we’re looking at is sort of the NDIS market, and the reason we’re looking at this is because there are, and this goes to the sort of broader regulatory alignment work again, that Aged Care have a whole lot of information available for consumers to help them navigate the market. So does, we have to some extent, some of that stuff in the NDIS as well. So this whole project is to look at, broadly, what type of information will help consumers navigate the market, and in particular, some of the types of things that are available in Aged Care, are they relevant and useful as well for the NDIS sector. So that’s sort of what that project is about. Again, that one again involves engaging a consultant to help us with that work and that will happen again early in 2022. Next one Caitlin.

I mentioned before that all that I’ve talked about above is about the roadmap side of things. There’s also some early sort of announcements, or moves that the government has already committed to in terms of regulatory alignment. 

The first one is worker screening. So there’s already an NDIS worker screening check that’s been rolled out as of February this year, and the decision by government was that that would become, if you like, a care and support sector worker screening check, and those checks would apply across the three programs that we’ve been talking about from 1 July 2022. Now, worker screening, while there’s a broad national policy design, states and territories actually are the ones who kind of actually do the worker screening. They’ve given in-principle support to align across the sectors, or across the care and support sector at least, across those programs but there needs to be still a lot of operational work undertaken with states and territories to implement that. But once it’s in place, it’ll mean that a worker who’s cleared, who gets a care and support sector check, will be able to work nationally across any of those program areas and any providers in that thing. 

Okay, next one is the Code of Conduct. So again, government took the decision in the budget context, that there’ll be a single care and support sector Code of Conduct that is very much based on the existing Code of Conduct for the NDIS. And there’s a consultation paper being developed and circulated around, and we’re getting feedback on that at the moment, with a, as I say, a draft kind of Code of Conduct based on the NDIS Code of Conduct, generalising it so it can work across the care and support sector. And looking for feedback on that as to whether, in its current form, or what kind of changes might need to happen to make that, or turn that into a single Code of Conduct for the care and support sector. So I think that’s that one. Next slide please.

Just in summary, the next steps basically consultant engaged to undertake the Consumer Information Project where we’re looking to get a report back, hopefully in March or April in 2022. Engage a consultant for the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Framework Review early in 22 but it’ll go with a report due back in December 22. And basically, us, DSS, continuing to work with the Regulatory Alignment Cross-Agency Taskforce and stakeholders to develop that regulatory roadmap that I’ve talked about. And also, us working very closely with the Department of Health and Department of Vets’ Affairs on the worker screening and Code of Conduct reforms due to be implemented by 1 July 2022. So hopefully that gives you a bit of a feel for what’s going on in this space and a bit of an update. Thanks Luke.

Thanks very much Paul. Well I’m conscious that we’re at 3:59 so we will close this webinar now but I just want to thank everyone very much for attending today. We value your insights and want to keep you informed throughout the implementation of the Workforce Plan. 

Thanks to Jo, Renae and Paul for presenting today, and also to Suzanne and Caitlin and team for organising this event. 

As I mentioned at the start of the presentation, a copy of the presentation and transcript from today will shortly be available on the Department of Social Services’ website, www.dss.gov.au/ndisworkforceplan. 

If you have any further questions arising from today’s webinar, please don’t hesitate to get in contact with us at NDISworkforceplan@dss.gov.au. Thank you very much everyone for your participation and talk to you in 2022. Thank you.