Analysing Choice in Australian Individual Funding Disability Policies

Abstract

The Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) will allocate funding packages to people with disability who are assessed as needing paid support. The NDIS is an example of individual funding, which is currently not the dominant way of organising disability support in Australia. Individual funding aims to increase opportunities for personal choice. We present a framework for understanding current individual funding policies in each Australian jurisdiction according to two policy dimensions that potentially enable greater personal choice for people with disability: who holds their allocated funds and where support can be purchased. The findings show wide disparities in choice acros..