Disability Services
01/12/2011
The Hon. S.G. WADE: I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Disabilities a question relating to quality standards for disability services.
Leave granted.
The Hon. S.G. WADE: Australians reasonably require high standards of accreditation for personal care services, such as aged and healthcare practitioners, services and institutions, yet disability services are largely free of accreditation and standards. The Disability Services Act of South Australia 1993 requires service providers and researchers funded under the act to apply the principles and objectives of the act, but those objectives and principles are vague and light.
I acknowledge that the government has commissioned a review of the act, and I note that the Strong Voices report urges this parliament to enact a new act, which it says ‘would specify high-level service standards, such as minimising use of restricted practices’. I note that that report talked only about high-level standards; I do not take that as a reference to accreditation standards.
In 2007, the Victorian government introduced rigorous quality standards for disability service providers in that state. South Australia has nothing comparable. With moves towards individualised funding and the national disability insurance scheme, people with disabilities and those who support them will increasingly need to have assurance of the quality of the services they are accessing in a competitive service delivery market. Vulnerable South Australians deserve to know that the services they are seeking have attained appropriate quality standards. My questions to the minister are:
1.Will the government release the report and recommendations of the Disability Services Act review as a freestanding report?
2.Will the minister commit to introducing a quality standards framework for disability services and service providers in South Australia?
The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (14:38): I would like to thank the honourable member for his very important question on the issue of quality standards for disability service providers in South Australia. It is an issue that is quite germane, because I raised this issue last night at the Autism SA annual general meeting. The standards and accreditation levels that applies to NGOs, in particular, in this state are not what I would describe in this day and age as being up to date and particularly modern.
There are, of course, problems with regulating higher standards of accreditation and service delivery standards, because it means that the NGOs have to be appropriately trained, their staff have to be up to a certain level of certification, and that all entails some sort of funding to actually help the NGOs through that process. These are some of the issues that the review the honourable member referred to is considering. Of course, if we do go down the path of looking at a new act, which is the recommendation in Strong Voices, that will be one of the concerns that we will have to contemplate.
In regards to the government releasing the report, I will have a look at the report, consider it and then make my judgement on when that will be released, if it is released, to this parliament.
The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Ms Vincent has a supplementary.
The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: Given that the minister has acknowledged that current accreditation standards for disability services are inadequate and the vulnerability that this can cause people with disabilities, will the government now support the mandatory reporting bill when it is introduced in the next session?
The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (14:39): The honourable member asked a supplementary about mandatory reporting. As she knows, my advisory committee has recommended not to go down the path of mandatory reporting; they say that that is too restrictive a process and there are better ways of dealing with the issues than mandatory reporting, as evidenced by some of the systems put in place in the UK, which I hope I will have a report on very shortly.
