Who needs an NDIS Check?

Under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (Worker Screening) Act 2020(link is external) (NDIS Worker Screening Act), people who work in risk assessed roles for registered NDIS providers are required to hold an NDIS Check clearance. This also includes contractors and volunteers. It is an offence to work without a valid NDIS Check clearance, or without having applied for one, and penalties will apply.

Under the NDIS, a risk assessed role includes:

• key personnel (such as management and operational positions)
• a role for which the normal duties include the direct delivery of
  specified supports or specified services to a person with disability
• a role for which the normal duties are likely to require ‘more than incidental contact’ with people with disability. This includes:
  • physically touching a person with disability
  • building a rapport with a person with disability as an integral and ordinary part of the performance of those duties
  • having contact with multiple people with disability, either as part of the direct delivery of a specialist disability support, or in a specialist disability accommodation setting.
  • 
    

Employers can assist workers in determining whether their role is risk assessed, and therefore if an NDIS Check is required.

If you are a self-employed registered NDIS provider, you will need to determine whether your role is a risk assessed role and whether you are providing ‘specified supports and specified services’ to an NDIS participant. Refer to the list of specified supports and services(link is external) found on the NDIS Commission website.

A worker who has applied for and NDIS Check and been issued an exclusion (i.e., a disqualified person) cannot make any further applications, unless the conviction on which the disqualification was based is quashed or set aside or otherwise ceases to have effect.

A person cannot apply for an NDIS Check if they have been issued an exclusion or had their clearance cancelled within the past five years (from the time of issue), unless there has been a significant and exceptional change in circumstances that would allow for an early application. Early applications may be permitted in certain circumstances. Contact the Screening Unit directly for further queries regarding this.