Ageing, Disability and Home Care NSW
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 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. Structure. 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: Ancillary functions. 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. Complaints about service provision. 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. Between May and August 2010, the NSW Ombudsman consulted with over 300 parents and carers of children with disabilities in order to report against progress at the mid-way point of Stronger Together". A change in government delayed the release of the report. In its assessment of making access to disability services simple, in June 2011 the Ombudsman reported that: Families told us that in their experience many health practitioners, social workers, and even some ADHC staff, lack knowledge about the  specialist disability service system. ...that their calls to ADHC to seek assistance had not been returned, or there had been extensive delays before they received a call back. This included people who had reapplied for ADHC support after previously receiving some assistance. Other families said that they had received a swift response after contacting ADHC, including a home visit and assessment, but had heard nothing afterwards. Some parents and carers told us that they believed that they were on a waiting list for support, but when they contacted ADHC, found out that there was no record of their contact or  they had not been added to the relevant waiting list. ...the work has been slow to date, and it is not yet clear whether the actions will address the problems raised by families.