What do we mean by changing your plan?

On this page:

Your NDIS plan has information about you and your goals and aspirations. We call this the ‘participant’s statement of goals and aspirations’. 

Your plan also has information about:

  • any general supports provided
  • your reasonable and necessary supports that meet the NDIS funding criteria
  • how your NDIS funds and the other parts of your plan will be managed.

We call this the ‘statement of participant supports.’

Learn more about creating your plan.

Every plan must include a reassessment date. We need to look at your plan with you by this date and decide if we need to make any changes. You can ask us to change your plan at any time. We can also decide to change your plan at any time if we think we need to. You don’t have to wait until the reassessment date to ask about changing your plan. We’ll work with you to change your plan if we need to.

In certain situations, we can change your plan by updating part of your current plan. We call this a plan variation. Or we can decide to approve a new plan after a plan reassessment. Both the decision to vary your plan and the decision to approve a new plan are reviewable decisions. 

If you’re not happy with a decision we have made about your plan, the best pathway is to seek an internal review of our decision. A plan change is not the right pathway to seek a review of a decision we have made.

Learn more about the difference between plan variations, plan reassessments and internal reviews.

What is a plan variation?

A plan variation is where we make changes to your current plan. We can make changes to your current plan without doing a plan reassessment. There are only certain situations when we can do this and the laws for the NDIS tell us what these situations are. If we decide to make changes to your plan, we’ll prepare the varied plan with you. 

We can vary your plan if you ask us to, or if we think a plan variation is required. When you ask for a variation, we call it a plan variation on the ‘participant’s initiative’. When we decide to make a variation, we call this a plan variation on the ‘CEO’s own initiative’.

The varied plan we approve may be different to what you ask for. We’ll talk to you about this when we’re preparing your plan. If the plan change is about funding in your plan, the varied plan must still meet the NDIS funding criteria.

Your plan can be varied in the following situations:

  • fix a small or technical error
  • vary your total budget amount (limitations apply)
  • vary your funding component amount(s) and funding periods
  • change how your funds are managed
  • change the reassessment date of your plan
  • update how the funds or other aspects of your plan are managed
  • update which specific provider must provide a support or how a support must be provided
  • change the statement of participant supports in your current plan, or the funding of supports under the plan.

The NDIS Rules can also say how your plan should be varied. 

This page current as of
10 December 2024
Indicates required field
Was this page useful?
Why?
Why not?