Government disability funding backflip leaves families facing budget limits – Jonny Wilkinson

The Government is promising more flexible funding for disabled people Photo / NZME

THE FACTS

• The Government is promising more flexible funding for disabled people through amendments being made to the support system.
• The changes respond to feedback from the community over the past year, including following the widely criticised changes to purchasing settings in early 2024.
• The changes only apply to disability support services and funding allocated by Needs Assessment Service Co-ordination organisations (NASCs).

“Yeah, nah”. This beloved Northland phrase currently sums up my thinking about the Government’ backflip over disability funding.

When I first read about the announcement – that there had been an apparent change of heart, following the cut-throat restrictions on disability spending brought in on St Paddy’s day last year, I was totally “Yeah! About bloody time!”

The restrictions that sent the disability community into turmoil on March 17, 2024 were going to be rolled back.

Then I started to read the fine print. Yes, the restrictions of flexible funding are going to be lifted (mind you, not till April 2026) and people will be given budgets to which they must adhere.

While individual budgets are nothing new, the way the budgets are set is going to be quite different.

The new, “flexible” budgets will be reallocated based on how much the person has spent in the past – specifically between June 2023-June 2025.

So, yeah, on one hand, the restrictions are going to be lifted – people will be able to spend their allocations in ways that make their environment less disabling.

No longer will there be restrictions that made it hard to spend the money that they had been allocated. But then the “nah” creeps in.

The new budgets will be based on what you spent between June 2023 and June 2025. During that time period, 15 months out of the 24 months had the Government’s heavy restrictions in place. Hello, everybody!

The so-called turnaround is going to be based primarily on what disabled people and their families were unable to spend because of the sudden and random restrictions imposed!

Radio New Zealand seemed to be aware of this irony when it did a story on the changes on September 3. It inquired about the budgets being based on past spending – rather than past funding. The Ministry of Social Development’s Alastair Hill gave assurances this would not mean limiting funding to the amounts people were able to spend under the controversial rules the Government had since agreed to scrap.

“Yes, people have previously been allocated funding that they did not spend within the allocation period. We recognise that in some cases that may have been due to restrictions to the purchasing guidelines that were put in place in March 2024,” Hill said.

It’s hard to understand how this underspend can be realistically quantified, given the complexities and nuances.

In Te Tai Tokerau, disabled people and their families were struggling to spend their Individualised Funding (IF) allocation during this time period.

This is because there is a lack of services in Tai Tokerau, particularly in the Mid and Far North.

To be able to utilise allocations you need to be able to be innovative and have the freedom of flexibility but yeah, nah – you also need the resourcing!

If there are no resources – you can’t use them!

The rental house that the Tiaho Trust is making available for families to hire out for somewhere for their disabled family member to go to and to receive respite care is an example of an innovative way for whānau to use their IF allocation, but such innovations are only feasible if there is enough pūtea (sum of money) in families’ allocations.

Yes, it’s fantastic that restrictions have been lifted, but there is no compensation for damage done to plans that got canned during this draconian restrictive period.

It’s a Catch 22 magical roundabout – it’s a classic “yeah, nah”.