The New Way of Planning: How to Help Test It

Planning is being rebuilt, and participants can sit in the test seat

The NDIA is running paid testing of a new way of planning before it rolls out from April 2027, and expressions of interest are open until 31 December 2026. You can apply if you are an NDIS participant aged 18 or over, or a plan nominee. Testing itself runs from July to December 2026.

This is the same new framework planning that now has a legislated start date behind it. The reform timeline published by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing has participants starting to transition on 1 April 2027, with the transition period ending on 31 December 2030. So this is not a consultation about whether planning changes. It is the window to influence how it feels when it does.

What you would actually be doing

Two things, according to the NDIA. You might take part in a simulated support needs assessment, or you might help train and accredit the NDIA assessors who will carry out those assessments in future.

A support needs assessment is a guided conversation. Its job is to help the NDIA understand a person's disability-related support needs. Simulated means it may feel like the real thing but exists only for testing and improvement. Sessions are run online.

If you have ever come out of a planning meeting thinking the questions missed the point of your daily life, this is the unusual case where the people designing the questions are asking to be corrected first.

The part families ask about first: does it touch my plan?

No. The NDIA states that taking part is voluntary and will not change a participant's current plan, will not affect future funding or eligibility, will not affect supports, and will not result in a new plan or budget. Information shared during testing is used only to improve the process and cannot be used to inform individual plans.

We flag that clearly because the fear is reasonable. Plenty of families have learned to treat any unscheduled contact with the Agency as a risk to their funding. On this one, the Agency has put the separation in writing.

You get paid, and access costs are covered

Participants are paid for their time. The NDIA has published that it will also arrange and pay for the supports someone needs in order to take part, and it names interpreters, live captioning and a support worker as examples. We are not quoting a payment figure here because the NDIA's participant notice does not state one, and the applicant information pack is where the detail is confirmed.

Not everyone who applies is selected. People are chosen based on what the testing needs at the time, and the NDIA has said it wants a spread of disability types, support needs and lived experience. Some participants will get an email invitation directly. Everyone else can apply through the NDIS Engage website.

Whether it is worth your two hours

If someone in your household finds new situations genuinely difficult, this is not the right volunteering. Be honest about that rather than pushing through it.

If they are steady with a video call and have opinions about how their support needs get described, it is a rare chance to shape the assessment that will eventually shape their funding. Support coordinators are worth a conversation here too, since they see the gap between how a plan reads and how a week runs. Our explainer on who manages your plan and what that changes covers where each of those roles sits.

We will keep reporting the rules as the NDIA publishes them, particularly anything that changes how support needs are evidenced for people living in supported homes. If you want the underlying structure explained without jargon first, our plain English NDIS help page is the place to start.