Engagement
The Disability Support Services Taskforce's engagement and consultation will be in two rounds
On this page
Live survey on future disability support services
DSS engagement and consultation
The Taskforce acknowledges the uncertainty that has come with the changes this year.
We want to provide more certainty for the future. Disabled people deserve support services that are fair, consistent, transparent and sustainable.
Families/ whānau, aiga and carers have an important role in the support they provide disabled people.
The Taskforce is working on how disability support services should best be provided in the future.
Policy work is centred on three recommendations of the Independent Review into Disability Support Services:
- updating the assessment and allocation settings for individuals based on level of need
- establishing criteria for access to flexible funding and reviewing the flexible funding guidelines to improve clarity and consistency
- and reviewing contract and pricing models for residential care
These are Recommendations Five and Six, and part of Recommendation Two.
Engagement and consultation with the community and providers is an important part of this work.
What's the plan?
The first round of public engagement and consultation with the disability community is underway. We have been meeting with a range of representative organisations, and an online public survey goes live on October 29 for a three-week period. Then in early 2025, there will be further and broader community engagement and consultation.
Recommendations Five and Six
For Recommendation Five, we need to update the assessment and allocation settings for disabled people to understand if disability support service needs are being met.
For Recommendation Six, we need to ensure access and eligibility guidelines to flexible funding are clearer and more consistent.
We’ll be asking questions about these recommendations and would appreciate your feedback through the online public survey on our website. This will be for a three-week period from 29 October.
During this round of engagement, we are also meeting with disabled community peak bodies, tāngata, whaikaha, Māori and Pasifika organisations, families / whānau and carers peak bodies, and NASC and EGL sites.
Further community engagement and consultation will be held in early 2025.
We want to acknowledge many of you have given feedback throughout the year on disability support services, and we want to thank you for that.
We will build on what you have already told us.
Recommendation Two
This recommendation is about reviewing contract and pricing models for residential care. We are meeting with a range of Residential Care providers to talk this through. We will be sharing a survey with them on contract and pricing. Providers are continuing to be funded at current rates in the meantime, while these issues are worked through.