Budget 2025: improving how DSS pays residential providers
The Government’s 2025 Budget announcement includes more than $1 billion in new funding for Disability Support Services (DSS).
Find out more about these initiatives on our Budgets page.
As part of Budget 2025, the Government also announced that DSS is changing the way it pays residential service providers.
DSS has developed a simpler way to pay residential providers for the supports and services we fund. This is called the Community Group Home Pricing Model.
This follows the work DSS has completed in response to Recommendation 2 of the 2024 Independent Review into DSS. This recommendation called for an urgent review of pricing and contracting for residential care.
The urgent review found that the previous system for paying providers was too complicated and not as fair as it should be. DSS is focusing on getting the basics right in how we pay for services.
The new pricing model will:
- be more consistent, transparent, fair, and financially sustainable
- help us better understand how much DSS needs to pay for residential care services
- involve less administration.
Ensuring disabled people in residential care continue to get the services and supports they need is our top priority. DSS will work with providers to support them to transition to this new model.
The Government has also confirmed that the funding freeze, which was implemented while the urgent review was undertaken, will be lifted from 1 July 2025.
When the funding freeze is lifted NASCs and Enabling Good Lives sites will still need to prioritise supports and services to those that need them the most. However, NASCs will have more flexibility to work with disabled people and their families to find the best options to suit them, whether these are in the community or residential care.
DSS is committed to ongoing work to strengthen the quality and safety of disability support services, and providing more options for disabled people who are looking for residential care.
This new pricing model is part of the wider work DSS is doing to respond to the 2024 Independent Review and stabilise our services. It sits alongside the recent community consultations on flexible funding and how to make our assessment and allocation processes clearer.
Find out more: