NDIS Worker Screening Check
The NDIS Worker Screening Check is now live nationally (except for the Northern Territory where it starts on 1 July 2021).
This page contains the following information:
- What is the NDIS Worker Screening Check?
- How to apply for an NDIS Worker Screening Check
- NDIS Worker Screening Database
- Glossary
- More information
What is the NDIS Worker Screening Check?
The NDIS Worker Screening Check is an assessment of whether a person who works, or seeks to work, with people with disability poses a risk to them. The assessment determines whether a person is cleared or excluded from working in certain roles with people with disability.
The NDIS Worker Screening Check is conducted by the Worker Screening Unit in the state or territory where a person applies for it. The Worker Screening Unit also decides whether a person is cleared or excluded. Registered NDIS providers are required to ensure that they only engage workers who have been cleared in certain roles, called risk assessed roles.
Before the NDIS Worker Screening Check started, registered NDIS providers were required to ensure that their workers in risk assessed roles had an acceptable check that met the transitional and special arrangements that apply to the state or territory where they provide supports and services. Now that the NDIS Worker Screening Check has commenced, registered NDIS providers may be able to continue recognising a person’s acceptable check if the person does not have an NDIS worker screening clearance. The period of time that an acceptable check can continue to be recognised depends on the state or territory where the person provides supports or services. Please visit the transitional and special arrangements page for more information.
How to apply for an NDIS Worker Screening Check
Workers engaged to provide NDIS supports and services to registered NDIS providers, unregistered NDIS providers and self-managed participants can apply for an NDIS Worker Screening Check through a state or territory agency. Each agency has a ‘Worker Screening Unit’. The Worker Screening Unit is responsible for accepting and processing NDIS Worker Screening Check applications from workers, and will undertake risk assessments to determine whether a worker receives a clearance.
When a worker makes an application for an NDIS Worker Screening Check there will be a fee payable which is set by the state or territory in which the application is made.
Workers must prove their identity for their application to proceed. The process for this will depend on the state or territory in which a person makes their application.
Workers will nominate the NDIS provider or self-managed participant that engages them (or intends to engage them) to provide NDIS supports and services. The NDIS provider or self-managed participant then needs to verify that they engage (or intend to engage) the worker, for the purposes of delivering NDIS supports and services. The application will not proceed to assessment until the relevant NDIS provider or self-managed participant has verified the application.
It is a condition of registration for registered NDIS providers that they ensure that workers in risk assessed roles have an NDIS Worker Screening Check or an acceptable check under the transitional and special arrangements. This provides a level of safeguarding for NDIS participants by helping to ensure that those in risk assessed roles do not pose an unacceptable risk to the safety and wellbeing of NDIS participants.
NDIS Worker Screening Database
The NDIS Worker Screening Database holds a register of workers who have applied for an NDIS Worker Screening Check. Registered NDIS providers can access the NDIS Commission Portal to view the clearance status of workers in the NDIS Worker Screening Database.
Self-managed participants and unregistered NDIS providers can access the NDIS Worker Screening Database after completing an application form requesting access.
Glossary
Below is a list of terms that are commonly used regarding worker screening.
- Acceptable check: An acceptable check is the name given when a person fulfils the requirements that apply in the state or territory where they provide supports and services under the transitional and special arrangements contained in Part 4 of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (Worker Screening—Practice Standards) Rules 2018. It allows individuals to work in certain types of roles without an NDIS worker screening clearance during a particular period that applies to that state or territory. In some cases, this acceptable check will continue to be recognised for a period after the NDIS Worker Screening Check has commenced.
- NDIS Worker Screening Check (Worker Screening Check): A nationally consistent assessment conducted by a state or territory Worker Screening Unit to determine whether a person who works, or seeks to work with people with disability poses a risk to them.
- NDIS Worker Screening clearance: A decision made by a Worker Screening Unit that clears a person who applied for an NDIS Worker Screening Check to work with people with disability in a risk assessed role.
- NDIS Worker Screening exclusion: A decision made by a Worker Screening Unit that does not clear a person who applied for an NDIS Worker Screening Check to work with people with disability in a risk assessed role.
- Registered NDIS provider: A registered NDIS provider is a person or organisation that is registered with the NDIS Commission in accordance with section 73E of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013. NDIS providers must be registered to deliver some kinds of supports (e.g. implementing regulated restrictive practices in a behaviour support plan).
Self-managed participants: Self-management is when an NDIS participant manages their own NDIS funding. It gives NDIS participants the flexibility and choice to decide which provider delivers NDIS supports and services to them to meet their plan goals. - Unregistered NDIS provider: A provider of NDIS supports and services that has not been registered with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission. Not all providers are required to be registered. Unregistered NDIS providers usually deliver lower risk supports to NDIS participants – for example, house maintenance. Only participants who self-manage or plan-manage their NDIS funding are able to choose to receive supports and services from unregistered NDIS providers.
- Worker: For the purposes of the NDIS Worker Screening Check, a worker is someone employed or otherwise engaged by a registered or unregistered NDIS provider, or someone who provides supports and services to self-managed participants. To note:
- It includes people in paid, unpaid and self-employed roles, such as employees, contractors, consultants, and volunteers.
- It also includes individuals that are themselves a registered or unregistered NDIS provider, each of the key personnel of a registered NDIS provider and a partner of a partnership that is a registered NDIS provider.
- Only workers of registered NDIS providers that are engaged in certain roles (called risk-assessed roles) are required to obtain an NDIS worker screening clearance.
- Worker screening unit (WSU): The person or body that is responsible for conducting NDIS Worker Screening Checks in a state or territory under its NDIS worker screening law. WSUs are contained within state or territory government departments, or other state or territory authorities.
More information
Worker screening for workers
Worker screening for registered providers
Worker screening for Residential Aged Care providers
Worker screening for unregistered providers
Worker screening for participants
Unregistered NDIS providers and self-managed participants can ask workers to undertake a Worker Screening Check and obtain an NDIS Worker Screening clearance, but this is not a requirement.
Applications for a Worker Screening Check are lodged through the state or territory’s WSU.
For more information about how to apply for a Worker Screening Check, including application fees, please visit the WSU webpage for the state or territory where you live or work.
Australian Capital Territory: Access Canberra
New South Wales: Office of the Children’s Guardian
Northern Territory: NT Police, Fire and Emergency Services
Queensland: Department of Seniors, Disability Services and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships
South Australia: Department of Human Services
Tasmania: Consumer, Building and Occupational Services
Victoria: Department of Justice and Community Safety
Western Australia: Department of Communities
The NDIS Worker Screening Database is now also available. The NDIS Worker Screening Database:
- holds a register of cleared and excluded workers
- supports national ongoing monitoring of the criminal history records of workers with NDIS Worker Screening clearances
- means NDIS providers across the country can use a single online portal to verify their workers’ Worker Screening Check applications, and review the NDIS Worker Screening clearances of prospective workers, without needing to contact individual state and territory WSUs
- helps NDIS providers with record-keeping requirements.
Registered providers have automatic access to the NDIS Worker Screening Database through a new tile on the NDIS Commission Portal. This means there is no need for registered providers to apply for access.
Self-managed participants and unregistered providers will need to apply to the NDIS Commission to access information stored on the NDIS Worker Screening Database.
Attribution: https://www.ndiscommission.gov.au/about/ndis-worker-screening-check
Date: 1st February 2021
Additional related resources:
