ISPs (Individual Service Packages)/SDA (Self Directed Approaches) is the trend, and is the focus of the Productivity Commission for NDIS.

People with a disability and/or their families will expect their ISP to directly translate into hands-on service provision. Whereas, there is a service coordination factor to be considered.

In some regions it is very difficult to receive funding for service coordination, and then sometimes not provided in a consistent manner within the region.

There are different funding responses across the regions. Some using a formula, or accepting formula based costing from services, like: “1 hour service coordination to 10 hours direct support; or 1 hour service coordination to 5 hours direct support; or 1 hour coordination to 8.6 hours of support; etc. etc.” Clearly, little consistency.

The Productivity Commission have identified service coordination as an issue requiring further investigation.

It is interesting to note that government funds coordination of its own direct care services, but not the coordination of non-government services. As we have always said, government department look after their own service, at the expense of non-government service providing similar