NDIS Green Paper 6: Cost Differentials, Cost Pressures & Labour Competition Impacting Western Australian Disability Service Delivery

The Not-for-profits UWA Research Team analysed data from published sources and volunteered data contributions provide by disability service providers to identify and examine key NDIS delivery cost differentials and cost pressures likely to exist between Western Australia and the other jurisdictions in Australia. It also gained access to data provided by a small number of disability service providers operating in Western Australia to find:
1) Employee expenses as a share of total income continues to be significantly higher in WA compared to all other jurisdictions
2) Job quality is poorest in disability services with the job quality gap growing negatively and impacting capacity of service providers to respond to service user needs
3) Competition for staff in WA continues to increase driven by the expanding mining sector despite the highest participation rate and lowest unemployment rate of all jurisdictions
4) Evidence of the impact of these pressures is clear with 11 disability service providers reporting they have a combined 422.4 FTE vacancies representing 12% of their combined workforce
5) The impact of increasing costs and competition for labour as a result of poor job quality is exacerbated by the same 11 disability service providers reporting an average per client reduction in their SIL income (for instance) of 6.8% for 2020/21 compared to their experience of 2019/20
6) Under Utilisation in WA of 38% as of 31 March 2021 and of 35% in 2019/20 underscores the lack of capacity in disability service provision
7) This situation is likely to worsen into the medium-term.