Ageing, Disability and Home Care NSW
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | July 2009 |
| Preceding Agency |
|
| Type | Department |
| Jurisdiction | New South Wales |
| Headquarters | Sydney |
| Employees | 13,600 (2011) |
| Annual budget | A$2.5 billion (2011) |
| Minister responsible | |
| Parent Agency | Department of Family and Community Services |
| Child agencies |
|
| Website | http://www.adhc.nsw.gov.au/ |
Ageing, Disability and Home Care NSW (ADHC) is a division of the Department of Family and Community Services in the Government of New South Wales that is responsible for the provision of services to older people, people with a disability, and their families and carers in the state of New South Wales, Australia.
The ADHC division supports approximately 300,000 vulnerable people from its annual budget of A$2.5 billion. It employs more than 13,000 staff. ADHC delivers services and manages 900 non-government and local government service providers that are funded to deliver services such as early intervention, therapy, respite, supported accommodation, case management and post-school programs.
The division is led by a Deputy Secretary, presently Jim Longley, who reports to the Minister for Ageing and Minister for Disability Services, presently the Hon. John Ajaka MLC.
Nine business streams and two offices deliver ADHC services for older people, people with a disability (particularly those with an intellectual disability) and their carers across six regions in NSW.
Two offices also provide specialist services and support:
The agency also funds the NSW Disability Council and the Home Care Service of NSW. These are statutory authorities which report directly to the Minister and are not subject to ADHC direction.
In 2004 under a special report to the NSW Parliament, the New South Wales Ombudsman raised concerns about the way services to children and young people with disability were being provided in NSW. The Ombudsman found that for families seeking support to care for children with disabilities, there was lack of clarity about how to access support and that the service system was fragmented and was characterised by poor coordination of support. A subsequent progress report in 2006 highlighted that while progress had been made to improve systems to support the provision of disability services, there had been no evaluation of the longer term impacts of the reforms on families requiring those services. In response to these reports, the Iemma government released Stronger Together, a 10-year plan to improve and expand services to people with disability and their families. The first five years were funded through an investment of A$1.3 billion and set out plans to increase capacity of the disability service system by 40 per cent. A subsequent four-year plan, released in February 2007 entitled Better Together, focused on improving ‘universal’ and ‘adapted’ services: such as childcare; school; before and after school care; and vacation care.
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