We can only include supports in your plan if they meet all the reasonable and necessary criteria.
This means that before we can include a funded support in your plan, we need to be satisfied it meets all the following criteria:
- The support is for the impairments you meet the disability or early intervention requirements for, or both.
- The support will help you to pursue your goals in your plan.
- The support will help you to undertake activities, to facilitate your social and economic participation. This means the support will help you join in social outings, recreation, work and study by reducing the disability-related barriers that prevent you from participating.
- The support represents value for money. This means we need to consider the costs and benefits of the support, as well as the costs and benefits of alternative supports.
- The support will be, or is likely to be, effective and beneficial for you, having regard to current good practice. This means we consider if there is evidence the support works for someone with similar disability support needs. We won’t need an expert report for every support, as we can often rely on other information or evidence. For example, we may have information already about whether the support is widely accepted to suit someone with your disability support needs. We also consider your lived experience.
- The funding of the support takes account of what it is reasonable to expect families, carers, informal networks and the community to provide. This means we need to consider what support is reasonable for your family, friends and community to provide.
- The support is an NDIS support for you.
The law for the NDIS sets out things that we need to consider when we apply the reasonable and necessary criteria.
For example, funding a vehicle modification may reduce your need for other supports. By funding a vehicle modification in your plan, we’ll look at whether you need less support to access the community.
If the vehicle modification will reduce your support needs, we might reduce the amount of support we fund for you to access the community.
This is because the same amount of support might not be reasonable and necessary when the whole package of supports is considered.