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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 supports we’ll give you, the supports we’ll pay for and how these 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 any changes are needed. 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. We’ll work with you to change your plan.
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 your new plan after a plan reassessment. We previously called this a plan review. Both the decision to vary your plan and the decision to approve a new plan are reviewable decisions.
If you are not happy with a decision we have made in relation to your plan, then 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?
There are some situations where your current plan can be varied without the need for a plan reassessment. This means we look at just part of your current plan and make the changes in this plan and don’t need create a new plan. We call this a varied plan. The law for the NDIS tells us what these situations are. If we decide to vary 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 still must meet the NDIS funding criteria .
Your plan can be varied in in the following situations.
Fix a small or technical error
If there is a minor or technical error in your plan we can usually update your plan to correct it.
For example: a small mistake in your plan might be a spelling mistake we need to fix or we may need to add in a word that was missed.
A technical error is where there has been a mistake in how we have processed something.
For example: If we have classified or calculated a support the wrong way we can fix it so it’s right.
We’ll fix any small or technical errors as fast as we can. We’ll let you know if we have fixed an error in your plan.
If there’s an error in your participant’s statement of goals and aspirations’ we’ll contact you before we make any changes or corrections.
Change the reassessment date of your plan
How far in advance a reassessment date is set in a plan isn’t the same for everyone. Your reassessment date will be specific to you and your situation, generally though it will be 3 years. In some situations we can change your reassessment date to a later date or an earlier date if we need to.
For example: your plan is working for you so we change the reassessment date to a later date. Or you are due to have surgery and will need time to recover, we may change your reassessment date to an earlier or later date that suits you better.
We won’t change your reassessment date if we are concerned about how your plan is working for you or you haven’t been using the funds in your plan. In this situation we’ll check-in with you.
If we change the reassessment date in your plan, we may need to make other variations to the statement of participant supports in your plan.
Case example
Fatima is a 27-year-old participant who lives with a mild intellectual disability. She speaks Arabic and uses an interpreter.
Fatima’s plan is near to its reassessment date.
Fatima’s planner organises an interpreter and a time to discuss Fatima’s plan reassessment.
At the meeting, Fatima tells her planner that her current plan has been working well and that she would like her current supports to continue for the next 12 months.
Fatima’s planner can see that she has been using her current plan well over the past 12 months and that her current supports will likely continue to meet her support needs.
Fatima’s planner discusses with her whether she thinks her plan would meet her support needs for the next 3 years. Fatima agrees that this would work.
Fatima’s planner approves a variation to her plan with the same supports for a duration of 3 years. Fatima’s planner also lets her know that if her situation changes, she can contact the NDIS.
Update how the funds or other aspects of your plan are managed
We can update the statement of participant supports that is already in your plan to change how the funds or other aspects of your plan are managed.
Learn more about how we decide funding is managed .
For example: you may decide you would like to self-manage some of the supports in your plan and ask us to change your plan. We assess the risk and decide that we can vary your plan so you can self-manage the supports you asked to.
It’s important to note that if you want a plan manager to manage some or all of your plan we’ll need to assess the risk first. You’ll need to agree to provide your plan manager with a copy of your plan.
Learn more about plan management .
Update who must provide a support or how a support must be provided
In certain situations, we can change the statement of participant supports to update who must provide a support or how a support must be provided. We can only update this if in your current plan the statement of supports already specifies that a support must be provided in a certain way.
Learn more about when we specify supports .
Case example
Toby is 17 years old and uses a text-to-speech communication technology to talk to his mates, family, and neighbours. He has recently upgraded his device and requires some intensive service provision from a speech therapist who is an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) trainer.
Toby’s current plan included two sessions a week for four weeks with a qualified and experienced speech therapist.
This was included as a stated support and Toby was about to start these sessions.
Unfortunately, Toby’s speech therapist was unable to continue with the intended service due to an unexpected interstate move. His therapist did provide a referral to Toby for a suitably qualified alternative AAC trainer.
Toby has chosen to accept the referral as the new provider is able to give Toby the training support he requires, and they are available to meet with him soon for the planned frequency of sessions.
Toby has requested that the statement of supports in his current plan is varied to change the stated provider to the new provider he has chosen.
Toby’s planner decides to vary his plan to include the new speech therapist as a stated support and maintains the frequency (manner) of service provision as previously stated. No other changes were needed in Toby’s plan.
If your plan says that provider X must provide your supports and provider X closes down, then we can vary your plan to update who the specific provider is.
Change the statement of participant supports that is in your current plan, or of the funding of supports under the plan
We can do this for the following reasons:
We believe that you need crisis or emergency funding because of a significant change to your support needs
In unexpected circumstance we may be able to vary your plan to add emergency supports or increase the amount of a support for a limited time. We may do this if there is a significant change to your disability-related support needs and you need support straight away. We’ll need enough information about your situation to be able to do decide to do this.
Generally, when we add these supports we’ll say how they can be used and for how long. These supports won’t be for the whole length of your plan. We’ll check-in with you regularly over this time. Near the end of the time-limited period we’ll check-in to see if your plan can now continue without these emergency supports. If it can’t we may need to do a plan reassessment.
If we’re not sure if you’re Disability-related support needs will stabilise we might decide to vary your plan to add time-limited funds and also bring your reassessment date forward. This is so we can provide the immediate support you need and see if your Disability-related support needs stabilise. Towards the end of these time-limited supports we’ll do a reassessment to see what your ongoing disability-related support needs are.
We might decide not to vary your plan if there are supports in your plan that you can use flexibly.
Case example
Leigh is 20 years old and lives at home with his dad, Geoff. Geoff is Leigh’s only informal support and helps him with some of his personal care needs. Leigh also has support workers to provide personal care and to help him get around home and the community.
Geoff has had an accident and suffered a broken leg. Geoff needs rehabilitation and won’t be able to help Leigh like he usually does. Geoff is expected to recover well, with likely medical clearance to be able to provide care to Leigh again in 10 weeks’ time.
Leigh urgently needs additional personal care support as he is unable to manage this independently. He needs an increase in his support worker hours for personal care and support with his mobility. He calls his local area co-ordinator and asks for a plan variation to get supports to cover this change to his support needs.
Leigh’s planner can see that his current plan won’t cover his urgent support needs and approves an additional 10 weeks of personal care support in his plan.
Leigh’s local area coordinator also makes a time to check in with him to see if he needs any other help or linkages to supports in the community.
We receive information or report after your plan has started that we requested to help us prepare or approve your statement of supports
We need to make an adjustment due to a change to the reassessment date of the plan
If we change your reassessment date in some situations we may also need to make other changes to your statement of supports or the funding of supports under the plan.
For example: if your plan is meeting your needs we might change the reassessment date so your plan goes for longer. If we do this we’ll adjust the funding for supports to cover the extra time;
If we bring your reassessment date forward, the supports in your plan will not change. But because the funding is now for a shorter time, the funds will be adjusted to account for the shorter plan timeframe.
We make a minor variation to your plan which increases your funding
We can do a this if:
we can look at the support separately from your other supports
you don’t have sufficient supports or flexibility of funding to cover a minor change
adding a requested support will have a minor impact on the rest of your plan
your plan with the minor change will meet your needs and the NDIS funding criteria .
For example:
We might add funding for repairs to a piece of assistive technology.
If you’re living in supported independent living accommodation, but want to look into living independently we may add funds to support you to explore individualised living options .
If you have an opportunity to start a job before there is time to do a plan reassessment, we may add specific employment supports that you need so you don’t miss out on this opportunity.
Case example
James is 5 years old and has cerebral palsy. James requires an ankle foot orthotic (AFO) to improve his walking pattern and stability.
He has had a growth spurt and his current AFO is now too small and needs to be changed.
James’ mum Rose is his child representative. Rose asks their Early Childhood Partner to help them make this change to James’s plan.
It is clear to James’s planner that James still requires the use of an AFO. This was considered reasonable and necessary in his current plan.
James’ planner decides to vary his plan and approves funding for a new AFO. James doesn’t need any other changes to his plan.
What is a plan reassessment?
We can do a plan reassessment at any time. Just like a plan variation we can reassess your plan if you ask us to or on the CEO’s own initiative if we think a plan reassessment is needed.
For example, we may do a plan reassessment if:
there are significant changes to your situation, such as starting work for the first time or moving out of home and your disability-related support needs have changed
your plan reaches the reassessment date and your plan requires changes.
When we do a reassessment we can decide to create a new plan or we can decide to vary your current plan, depending on your situation.