When the NDIS reformed disability funding, an entire generation of providers had to relearn how to run an organisation. Block-funded services that had served their communities for decades suddenly had to compete for individual participants and price every support to the minute. Boards that had previously focused on compliance and quality found themselves debating unit economics, service mix and whether the organisation’s existing model was even viable.
A decade on, the questions have evolved but they have not gone away. The boards we work with are still navigating the consequences of that shift, and the further reforms layered on top of it: changes to pricing, the role of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, supported independent living and specialist disability accommodation rules, and the ongoing pressure to scale, partner or specialise.
What we hear in disability boardrooms today is a more confident version of the same fundamental question. Given the participants we serve, the workforce we have and the market we operate in, what is the strategy and the governance practice that will keep this organisation viable, valuable and ours?
How we work in disability
Australian Strategic Services has worked with disability service providers across the transition to the NDIS and beyond. The work spans strategic planning, governance review, board and CEO performance evaluation, organisational redesign and merger or partnership advisory. The practical governance system used in our engagements, TAGS, addresses the governance requirements of state and Commonwealth disability standards alongside the NDIS Quality and Safeguards regime.
Articles and case studies
- A new world order for non-profit organisations, sector-wide change including the disability funding shift.
- Continuing the Journey: the Emerging World of NDIS, disability sector governance and strategy under the NDIS.
- Achieve Australia, Oak Tasmania and Villa Maria, disability service provider case studies.