NDIS Integrity and Safeguarding Bill: What It Means for Plan Managers

What’s Changing? 

A Plan Managers’ Summary of the Integrity and Safeguarding Bill 

The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025 has now passed Parliament. This legislation represents the second major tranche of NDIS reforms, following the Getting the NDIS Back on Track amendments in 2024. 

The focus of this Bill is on integrity, safeguarding and enforcement, strengthening the powers of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission to better detect, prevent and respond to misconduct across the Scheme. 

Below is a plain‑English summary of what’s changing and what it means for Plan Managers. 

What is the Integrity and Safeguarding Bill? 

• The Integrity and Safeguarding Bill amends the NDIS Act to: 
  • Increase penalties for serious misconduct 
  • Strengthen monitoring, compliance and enforcement powers 
  • Crack down on fraud, exploitation and misleading practices 
  • The reforms are aimed at protecting participants and improving the long‑term sustainability of the NDIS. 

What’s changing for Plan Managers? 

Increased penalties for serious Code of Conduct breaches 

The Bill significantly increases penalties for serious breaches of the NDIS Code of Conduct. 
In cases where serious misconduct leads to death or serious injury, maximum penalties increase from approximately $412,500 to more than $15 million for corporations. 

What this means for Plan Managers:

• Plan Managers, as NDIS providers, are required to comply with the NDIS Code of Conduct. 

• The increased penalties raise the stakes for:  

• Poor governance 

• Systemic failures 

• Ignoring or facilitating serious misconduct 

• This reinforces the importance of strong internal controls, clear escalation pathways, and robust record‑keeping. 

New anti‑promotion orders (misleading advertising) 

The Bill introduces anti‑promotion orders, allowing the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission to restrict advertising or promotional conduct that: 

• Undermines the integrity of the NDIS, or 

• Encourages participants to misuse their funding. 

What this means for Plan Managers:

Plan Managers have visibility across a wide range of Providers and Participant spending. This places them in a position to: 

• Identify misleading or concerning marketing 

• Support participants to understand appropriate use of their funding 

• Flag emerging integrity risks where advertising appears to drive misuse 

This reflects how anti‑promotion powers may intersect with Plan Management activities, given Plan Managers’ visibility across provider invoices and Participant spending. 

Strengthened monitoring, compliance and enforcement powers 

What does this actually mean?

This change gives the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission stronger tools to act earlier, faster and more decisively. 

What has changed:

 Reduced response timeframes for regulatory requests 

• The Commission can require information and documents to be provided within shorter timeframes. 

• Timeframes for responding to information requests are reduced. 

• Civil penalties may apply where a person fails to comply with a requirement to provide information or documents. 

These changes support more timely regulatory action where there are serious safeguarding concerns. 

Expanded compliance tools

• New civil penalties allow the Commission to act without relying solely on criminal prosecution. 

• Higher penalties apply for repeated, systemic or serious breaches. 

• Clear definitions now exist for “serious contraventions” and “systemic patterns of conduct” to support a tiered penalty framework and distinguish isolated incidents from broader compliance failures. You can find further detail in the NDIS Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025 Overview. 

Stronger enforcement

• Much higher financial penalties. Maximum penalties for serious breaches have increased significantly. In the most serious cases, including where conduct results in death or serious injury, civil penalties for corporations can exceed $15 million. 

• New criminal offences for the most serious breaches.  New criminal offences apply in cases such as failing to comply with a banning order or providing supports that require registration while unregistered, with penalties that can include imprisonment. 

• Liability is not limited to the provider entity. Civil and criminal penalties may apply to individuals, not only provider organisations. This can include directors, officers, key personnel and others involved in serious or systemic misconduct. 

• Expanded banning powers. Banning powers now extend beyond providers and workers to include auditors, consultants, business advisors and other persons operating within the NDIS market, where necessary to protect participants and scheme integrity. 

What this means for Plan Managers:

• Greater emphasis on accuracy, documentation and transparency. Stronger enforcement and leadership accountability increase the importance of clear records, accurate claims and well‑documented decision‑making. 

• Timely responses and audit readiness are more critical. Reduced response timeframes mean Plan Managers may need to be able to provide information promptly when requested by regulators. 

• Supporting safeguarding through visibility, not enforcement. While Plan Managers are not responsible for policing provider conduct, their visibility across invoices and claims supports transparency and may assist in identifying issues that warrant referral to the appropriate regulator. 

Modernising NDIS claims – mandated electronic claiming 

The Bill removes paper‑based reimbursement claims and introduces mandated electronic claim forms. 

What has changed: 

• Reimbursement claims can no longer be submitted using paper forms by post. 

• Claims must be lodged electronically, with supporting documentation uploaded online. 

What this means for Plan Managers:

• No change to core Plan Management functions. The move to electronic claiming largely aligns with existing practice and closes legacy paper‑based loopholes rather than introducing new requirements.

Changes that do not directly affect Plan Managers 

For Plan Managers, these measures do not directly change plan management arrangements. They include: 

• Criminal penalties for failing to comply with a banning order 

• Criminal penalties for providing supports that require registration without being registered 

• Expanded banning powers to include auditors, consultants and business advisors 

• Strengthened whistleblower protections 

While these measures do not change the role of plan managers, they contribute to the broader safeguarding and integrity framework of the NDIS. Plan Managers are in the unique position to identify and report critical safeguarding concerns to the Commission, who now have increased powers to investigate and resolve issues. 

In summary 

The Integrity and Safeguarding Bill strengthens the regulatory framework of the NDIS and significantly increases the consequences of serious misconduct across the Scheme. 

For Plan Managers, the changes primarily reinforce:

• the importance of strong governance and leadership accountability across providers 

• clear documentation, transparency and audit readiness 

• their role in supporting integrity and safeguarding through accurate claims processing and financial oversight 

Plan Managers have long faced uncertainty about their role in reporting suspected misconduct, often navigating competing considerations around privacy, participant choice and control, and uncertainty about which regulator to notify. 

The Integrity and Safeguarding Bill does not introduce new or explicit reporting obligations for Plan Managers, nor does it materially clarify these existing grey areas. Current reporting pathways and obligations remain unchanged. 

Instead, it represents a foundational legislative update aimed at strengthening the integrity and long‑term sustainability of the NDIS.