Community consultation - now closed

More than 1,800 people contributed by attending in person or online workshops, making a submission, completing a survey or running their own workshop.

Here’s some high-level themes from the feedback on assessment tools and processes and flexible funding.

• People want the assessment process to be easier, more consistent and streamlined.
• Many people support a specific needs assessment for family/carers, but opinions differ on how that should be done.
• There was significant support for a plan-based approach to managing flexible funding.
• People expressed concern that a prescribed list could be too restrictive while others see benefits, especially for those unfamiliar with flexible funding.
• Most people oppose introducing criteria to access flexible funding, but some think it could provide clarity and consistency.

Full analysis from the consultation will be published on this page, shortly.

Your feedback will help Government to make decisions to stabilise disability support services before considering further work to strength those supports into the future.

The final decisions relate to Recommendations 5 and 6 from the Independent Review.

The consultation focused on the 50,000 disabled people, and their whānau, who receive essential disability support after an assessment from:

• a Needs Assessment and Service Co-ordination (NASC) organisation, or
• an Enabling Good Lives (EGL) site.

Assessment tools and processes

We wanted to hear how we can make our assessment and allocation processes clearer.   

This is about improving how the needs of disabled people are assessed, and decisions made about the support they are given to ensure consistency.

Read our fact sheet on assessments and allocation settings external.

Flexible funding

We wanted feedback on proposed criteria for access to flexible funding and changes to how the funding is used.

There were two options for how these changes could be made: 

• Option 1 links each person’s flexible funding to a plan. 

• Option 2 amends the current purchasing rules.  

Read our fact sheet on flexible funding external.

The consultation was informed by a Discussion document (a summary version was also available).