Tuesday, 20 February 2024

Ministers statements: social services

Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (12:47): Following the tabling of the Community Visitors Annual Report 2022–2023 in the last sitting week, I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge Dr Colleen Pearce for the work she undertakes as the public advocate and update the house on the work of hundreds of community visitors across Victoria providing a vital service in monitoring supported residential services and disability services across our community. For more than 35 years community visitors have reported on the good and the poor practices in the places where people with disability and mental health issues live and receive services in Victoria. I am pleased to report that the community visitors program continues to receive steady applications from across the state, and this reflects Victorians’ commitment to their community.

This year’s community visitors annual report again provides important insights into the vulnerabilities of people with disability as well as mental health issues living in facilities where they receive support. The report also documents those service providers with good practices across the state, despite continuing staffing shortages, and outlines recommendations for practice improvements and system reforms. We acknowledge those recommendations for reform, and we know that there is more work to do to support residential services and disability services in Victoria. That is why last year we passed the Disability and Social Services Regulation Amendment Bill 2023 to enact important reforms. This included, amongst numerous other changes, allowing the minister to declare an additional category of disability accommodation so that community visitors can inquire into the quality and standard of support provided to residents.

We also know there is a need to create a simple, streamlined one-stop shop for regulation, complaints and compliance for clients in the social services sector. That is why I was delighted to announce that Jonathan Kaplan will serve as the new independent social services regulator and be tasked with protecting people from harm in services. The social services regulator will have responsibility for the regulation of social services, including supported residential services and disability services outside of the NDIS. We also announced that as part of creating the new regulator we will establish a complaints division to cover all regulated social services. This will ensure that users of social services have a simple, easy-to-navigate process to raise complaints. Mr Kaplan has already started the work in preparing for the regulator’s commencement on 1 July 2024, and we look forward to him starting.