Navigating crisis management and administrative burdens: lessons from the NDIS during COVID-19
Our blog today also considers a crisis - perhaps the biggest social and administrative crisis in recent times- Covid-19. Nicholas Bromfield, Public Service Research Group, UNSW Canberra, examines the NDIS’s response to the pandemic, highlighting the important role of people with disabilities in co-producing policy successes.
Author: Nicholas Bromfield, Public Service Research Group, UNSW Canberra, nicholas.bromfield@unsw.edu.au
The COVID-19 pandemic has tested the resilience of social policy systems worldwide, creating administrative burdens - onerous state-citizen interactions that limit access to government benefits and programs - particularly for marginalised groups. Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is an example of this intersection of crisis management and administrative burdens.
In a recent paper published with Social Policy and Administration, Professor Gemma Carey and I explored the lessons learned from the NDIS's COVID-19 response, highlighting:
· The challenges faced by NDIS workers and participants.
· How people with disability co-produced the limited success found in NDIS COVID-19 measures.
· Insights into how future crises can be better managed to avoid and curtail inadvertent and deliberate administrative burden.
We argued that a crisis equity agenda must foresee burdens for marginalised groups and plan and actively implement actions to assist the most disadvantaged in navigating stressed policy systems during crises.
What we did
To understand the administrative burdens within the NDIS during COVID-19, a systematic review was conducted, examining peer-reviewed and grey literature from January 2020 to February 2024. The review identified burdens on people with disabilities, their causes, avoidability, and affected groups.
What we found
The ideal crisis management framework emphasises the importance of pre-crisis planning, clear communication, and coordinated responses. However, the NDIS's experience during COVID-19 highlighted several governance failures, including:
· A lack of pre-pandemic planning.
· Inconsistent communication to NDIS workers, participants and carers.
· Political inaction, poor coordination and absence of prioritisation of people with disability in the response.
These factors produced a fragmented and inconsistent response within the NDIS. Providers, workers, participants and carers were left to navigate the burdens produced by this breakdown of governance, engendering:
Learning costs: NDIS workers and participants struggled to navigate changing and inconsistent COVID-19 guidelines and protocols. The lack of consistent information and direction from central agencies created confusion and increased the time and effort required to understand what was required.
Compliance costs: The financial and logistical challenges of complying with new safety measures, such as acquiring personal protective equipment (PPE), were significant for workers, providers and participants. Many workers had to purchase PPE out of their own pockets. Participants similarly reported having to dip into their personal finances to cover PPE or even services themselves, adding to their monetary strain.
Psychological costs: The stress and anxiety associated with navigating these burdens were palpable. Workers reported feeling unsafe and unsupported, while participants struggled with the anxiety, stigma and stress of accessing necessary services.
Co-producing policy success: the role of people with disabilities
In the face of these challenges, the success of the NDIS's COVID-19 response was in fact co-produced by people with disabilities and their advocates.
To get the most out of the NDIS, participants need forms of capital. As such, NDIS participants actively co-produced local policy successes during the pandemic when they possessed sufficient social, cultural and financial capital to overcome system-produced burdens.
Consequently, some people were able to draw upon these forms of capital to navigate burdens and gain additional supports and flexibility. This highlighted that the decentralised nature of the NDIS created pockets of co-produced functionality.
But on the other hand, people with disability and their carers who did not possess these forms of capital experienced the compounding costs of burdens and subsequently impaired, insufficient or absent support.
Lessons learned and the path forward
The NDIS has strong central agencies and a network of organisations for local adaptation during crises. Several points to maximise the effectiveness of this structure can be made:
· Crisis planning from the Australian Government must prioritise inclusion of people with disability. The 2024 update to the Australian Government Crisis Management Framework (AGCMF) still contains no reference to people with disability or the NDIS.
· Similarly to the AGCMF, a framework needs to be developed for the crisis coordination of the NDIS to avoid the scramble to direct and manage the NDIS’s complexity during crises.
· Crisis communication within the NDIS should be two-way, instead of top-down, facilitating the co-production of sensemaking and crisis adaptations with frontline workers and NDIS participants.
The NDIS's experience during COVID-19 highlights the critical role of planning, communication, and coordination in navigating crises. But just as importantly, it also showcases the resilience and agency of people with disabilities who co-produce successful outcomes in the face of government inaction.
Based on: Bromfield, N., & Carey, G. (2025). What Can Be Learned at the Intersection of Crisis Management and Administrative Burdens? Evidence From a Systematic Review of the Governance of Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme During COVID‐19. Social Policy & Administration. https://doi.org/10.1111/spol.13136
Moderator: Colette Einfeld