Registering as an SDA provider

1A-05Group and audit

The registration group and its audit

The Commission explains that each provider’s registration conditions specify its registration groups, or classes of support, and that the groups in an application or renewal decide which type of audit the provider needs. Where an application includes groups tied to both verification and certification audits, the provider completes a certification audit.

2A-05Sequence

Registration and enrolment, in order

Section 26 of the SDA Rules bars the CEO from enrolling a dwelling unless satisfied that the applicant is registered to provide SDA. The NDIA’s two provider pages put the timing differently, and each is given here as it stands:

• its guide to providing SDA says you must be registered through the Commission, with the SDA registration group approved, before you begin your enrolment;
• its page on enrolling a home says you must be a registered provider, or have applied to become one, with the SDA registration group approved.

Enrolment itself is the subject of sheet A-01.

3A-05Conditions Rule 2018

Section 10: access for other providers

The SDA Conditions Rule 2018 attaches conditions to an SDA provider’s registration. Section 10 is quoted in full.

4A-05Practice Standards

The Practice Standards’ SDA module

The supplementary module for SDA applies to providers registered to provide SDA to NDIS participants. In the Practice Standards Rules, clause 4 of the SDA module in Schedule 7, on conflict of interest, reads: “Each participant’s right to exercise choice and control over other NDIS support provision is not limited by the participant’s choice of specialist disability accommodation dwelling.”

Among the module’s other expectations, as the Commission sets them out:

• enrolled dwellings meet the design type, category and density restriction requirements of the SDA Conditions Rules;
• providers keep complying with those Rules and with all relevant laws and standards, building standards and tenancy laws included;
• each participant’s access to SDA dwellings respects their legal and human rights, with support to make informed choices;
• enrolled dwellings are in a good state of repair and properly maintained, with regard to residents’ safety, security and privacy;
• where one provider gives a participant both SDA and other NDIS supports, the two are covered by separate service agreements;
• a participant’s housing rights, security of tenure included, are upheld whatever they decide about other supports in the dwelling, “notwithstanding any matters covered by the specialist disability accommodation service agreement”;
• work is done with each participant to develop a written service agreement that meets the SDA Conditions Rules and any applicable state or territory residential tenancy law, and the participant receives a copy signed by both sides, or a record is made of why not;
• a complaints system meets the NDIS (Complaints Management and Resolution) Rules 2018;
• state or territory rules on tenancy notices are followed.

The NDIA adds that you must have a service agreement with each participant, and help them understand it in their preferred language and way of communicating.

5A-05Revision

The new Commission portal

The Commission says providers’ obligations and the NDIS Practice Standards stay the same; only the system used for that work is new. Its checklist of what to do before 12 October lists what providers were asked to do before that date. Enrolling a home is done with the NDIA, through the my NDIS provider portal.

The pricing that follows enrolment is on sheet A-04; the cover sheet is A-00.