Review Panel

The Review Panel was established to review specific high-cost support packages for residential support, as part of the Independent Review external. It assists NASCs and Enabling Good Lives sites to achieve greater national consistency on high-cost support packages and residential placement decisions.  

The Review panel convenes as frequently as required, so decisions can be made and communicated quickly.

An assurance team triages referrals before sending to the Review Panel. They:

• assess referrals and supporting evidence against the criteria and may seek further information from NASC
• send complete referrals to the Review Panel for consideration – if all criteria are met and sufficient supporting evidence is supplied.

The panel provides assurance to DSS that these funding decisions are in accordance with relevant criteria. 

NASC and EGL sites are responsible for:

• Ensuring referrals have the supporting evidence.
• Ensuring referrals meet the eligibility criteria.
• Confirming they have the budget to pay for the support package.
• Submitting complete referrals to the Review Panel.

The Review Panel Terms of Reference (ToR) have been updated, as follows.

What has changed?

DSS has updated the Review Panel’s ToR.

The most significant change will give NASCs and EGL sites the ability to manage cases where there is a potential for a high risk of harm if a disabled person is unable to enter residential care.

This means the Review Panel can consider specific high priority cases even when NASCs and EGL sites cannot offer assurance that there is availability within their immediate residential budgets.

NASC and EGL sites will not need to confirm they have budget immediately available for the Review Panel to endorse a new entry to residential care.

They will need to provide assurance that they will take reasonable and practical steps to return to being within budget within the financial year.

This will ensure NASCs and EGL sites are supported to manage high priority situations where there could be an identifiable health or safety concern.

DSS is working closely with NASCs and EGL sites to strengthen their budget management and forecasting ability.

Additional changes

• Require all new residential entries to be referred to the Panel.
• Further clarification on which funding packages do not need to be referred to the Panel.
• Clarify what funding should be excluded when deciding whether thresholds for packages referred to the Panel have been met.
• Provide more detail about the types of evidence required by the Panel.

A series of minor changes have also been made to clarify responsibilities and improve readability.

What stays the same?

• Cabinet’s decisions resulting from the Independent Review.
• Operational Policy and Guidance 2024/25.

Find out more on the Review Panel Terms of Reference page. 

For more extensive information on changes, download: 

• Review Panel Terms of Reference key information (DOCX 1.2 MB)
• Review Panel Terms of Reference key information (PDF 142 KB).