Summary

This bulletin presents data collected in the Disability Services National Minimum Data Set (DS NMDS) on disability support services provided under the National Disability Agreement (NDA) in 2012-13. Information on disability services provided under the NDA continues to be important as the disability policy and service delivery environment evolves with the initial implementation steps of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) in 2013-14. During the implementation phase of the NDIS, the DS NMDS remains the main source for reporting on services used by people with disability and is a source of important 'baseline' and other data that can be used to inform the implementation of the NDIS.

This bulletin presents information on the estimated 312,539 people with disability who accessed disability support services in 2012-13, including the services they received across five broad service groups-community support (received by 45% of service users), employment (41%), community access (18%), accommodation support (14%) and respite (12%) services.

The number of service users generally increased over the 5 years to 2012-13 (by 12% between 2008-09 and 2012-13), but there was a slight (2%) decrease between 2011-12 and 2012-13. The change in the number of service users was not evenly spread across jurisdictions or service groups and reflected both an actual decrease in service users in some jurisdictions and some changes in the way the data were collected or reported (see Box 1).