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Whaikaha Ministry of Disabled People View our
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Budget 2025 - Disability Related Initiatives

The following Budget 2025 initiatives may be of interest to the disability community.

Please note this is not a definitive list, and Whaikaha is not the lead agency for most of these initiatives. They have been identified in the Summary of Initiatives for Budget 2025 external URL .

Disability Support Services

Disability Support Services – Supporting Disabled People

This initiative provides funding to meet the continued delivery of support to disabled people and their families. The funding will help meet demand and inflationary pressures on Disability Support Services.

 

High and Complex Framework Funding Pressures

This initiative provides funding to deliver services under the High and Complex Framework, including supports for people with an intellectual disability who live in secure or supervised care. Funding will provide for critical workforce training initiatives and essential infrastructure, which includes repairs and maintenance upgrades to essential security features.

 

Disability Support Services – Adjustment to Residential Care Funding

This initiative increases funding to providers of residential care in community group homes, and to support service continuity for disabled people with specialist support needs living in aged residential care settings

Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care

Addressing the Wrongs of the Past – Redress System Changes and Provision of Redress for Abuse in Care

This initiative provides funding to enable the Government’s delivery of redress for abuse in state care following the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. This includes a package of $503.2 million across multiple agencies, to:

  • increase the average of payments to survivors from $20,000 to $30,000, and provide ‘top-up’ payments to previously settled claimants
  • increase government capacity to process historic abuse claims to over 2,000 per year from 2026/27
  • continue funding to provide survivors with access to supports and services
  • make system improvements to ensure that survivors receive consistent and seamless service along with system governance and monitoring, and an independent review of changes in 2027.

Some funding will continue the provision of the records website and the Survivor Experiences Service for one year and be held in contingency from 2026/27 onwards to allow for a review of these services as part of broader redress system work.

 

Crown Response Office – Time-limited Operating Funding

This initiative provides funding for the Crown Response Office to drive the implementation of the work programme arising from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. Funding will allow for functions that include monitoring and oversight, survivor engagement, legal services, advisory and on-going departmental needs.

 

Implementing the Government’s Response to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care

This initiative provides funding held in contingency to support the delivery of the Crown’s response to the recommendations made by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, to address the wrongs of the past, make the care system safe and empower whānau and communities to prevent people from going into care

 

Making the Care System Safe – Building a Diverse, Capable and Safe Care Workforce

This initiative provides funding to respond to care system safety recommendations made by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. Funding provides for staffing to give effect to the funding held in contingency to build a diverse, capable and safe workforce. The Ministries of Education, Health, Social Development (Disability Support Services), Health New Zealand and Oranga Tamariki will jointly design and implement a phased rollout of core training and ongoing development, and joint review and implementation of workforce screening and safety.

 

Other Initiatives Relating to the Crown’s Response to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care

This section covers initiatives which cut across multiple Votes as part of the Crown’s Response. Further initiatives related to the Crown’s Response are led by Ministers responsible for Disability Support Services, Health, Internal Affairs, Oranga Tamariki and Social Investment. Further information can be found in the respective Vote sections. These initiatives are:

  • Vote Disability Support Services – Recognising and Responding to Abuse of Disabled People in Care on page 29 ($8.8 million operating over four years)
  • Vote Health – Bolstering Safeguards and Oversight of Compulsory Mental Health and Addiction Care on page 45 ($9.4 million operating over four years)
  • Vote Health – Improving Mental Health Inpatient Unit Environments on page 45 ($0.7 million operating over four years and $50 million total capital)
  • Vote Internal Affairs – Recordkeeping to Improve Quality, Quantity, Capacity, Access and Whānau Connections on page 51 ($6.8 million operating over four years)
  • Vote Oranga Tamariki – Recognising and Responding to Abuse of Children and Young People in Care on page 59 ($16 million operating over four years)
  • Vote Social Investment – Empowering Families, Whānau, and Communities to Prevent Entry into Care on page 72 ($25 million operating over four years).

Learning Support

Learning Support – Behaviour and Communications Service

This initiative provides funding for additional frontline staff to meet the needs of learners who will need targeted or individual specialist support from the Behaviour and Communications Service over the next four years. The funding is for an additional 6.2 full-time equivalent (FTE) educational psychologists and 78.5 FTE speech language therapists as well as additional teacher aide time. It also funds an additional 5.6 FTE service managers to manage the new specialists.

This initiative contributes to the Government’s priority for stronger learning support by providing increased capacity to address demand, so that students with additional learning needs can receive the support they need.

 

Learning Support – Early Intervention Service Strengthened and Extended to Year 1 Learners

This initiative provides funding to extend the Early Intervention Service (EIS) into Year 1 of school with 119 new specialist staff in 2026 to create a smoother and more effective transition to school for young learners with additional learning support needs.

This provides $210.0 million over four years to meet increased demand for additional specialist support in EIS, including services extending into Year 1 of school. It also provides $6.6 million over four years to grow and develop the specialist workforce, and for a price increase for EIS service providers that have not had an increase since 2019. Funding for this initiative increases beyond 2028/29.

 

Learning Support – Expanding Te Kahu Tōī, the Intensive Wraparound Service

This initiative provides funding for 45 additional student places for Te Kahu Tōī Intensive Wraparound Service, with 30 new places in 2026 and another 15 from 2027. It also funds two additional full-time equivalent (FTE) staff psychologists and three contracted FTE facilitators in 2026, rising to three FTE psychologist and five FTE facilitators from 2027.

Te Kahu Tōī supports students in years 0 -10 who have highly complex and challenging behaviour, social, and learning needs at school, at home, and in the community. It supports improvements in students’ self-control, social skills, attitudes and beliefs, relationships with others, and access to safe environments and achievement.

 

Learning Support – Intern Psychologist Salaries

This initiative provides funding for wage pressures for the 25 educational psychologist interns employed by the Ministry of Education each year. A 2023 Employment Relations Authority determination has deemed interns to be fixed-term employees, which has increased the cost of wages.

In recent years, more than 85 per cent of the interns have been offered ongoing employment within the Ministry of Education once they are qualified. This initiative supports the development of the psychologist workforce, which has been consistently difficult to recruit, which will lift delivery of learning support services.

 

Learning Support – Ongoing Resourcing Scheme

This initiative provides funding for the increasing number of learners who are eligible for the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme (ORS). ORS entitlement is based on meeting specified criteria, and demand for ORS has been increasing due to population growth, migration levels, better identification of need, and the changing prevalence of different needs. The initiative strengthens learning support with funding for students with the highest ongoing levels of need for specialist support.

Funding for the ORS service was previously delivered at a fixed level and funding increases were sought through the Budget process. This initiative changes the funding mechanism from fixed to demand-driven, which enables volume funding adjustments based on changes in the forecasts for roll growth and demand for the ORS service.

 

Learning Support – Teacher Aide Support for the Early Intervention Service Extension into Year 1 of Schools and Kura

This initiative provides funding for teacher aide time for children supported by the Early Intervention Service (EIS) extending to Year 1 of schools and kura. Around 3,970 children who are projected to use the EIS in year 1 will benefit from teacher aide time as part of the support they receive. This initiative will strengthen learning support in the early years and is aligned with evidence of best practice, enabling classroom teachers to be released to work directly with the learners, together with the support of specialists and Learning Support Coordinators.

 

Learning Support Coordinators for Schools with Year 1 to 8 Students

This initiative provides funding to roll out Learning Support Coordinators (LSCs) to all schools. Every school with Year 1 to 8 students will have access to a co-ordinator, either through existing arrangements or a new allocation based on a roll-based formula.

The initiative funds around 650 new LSC full time teacher equivalents that will be phased in over three years, as well as for professional learning and development, and evaluation costs. Most of the funding is in contingency and subject to the approval of a finalised implementation plan for the new LSC roles.

 

Teacher Aide Professional Learning and Development

This initiative provides funding for professional learning and development (PLD) for teacher aides which increases confidence and capability to support the social and emotional wellbeing, and the behavioural needs of learners. PLD funded by this initiative will specifically focus on teacher aides developing an understanding of the unmet needs that can drive behavioural responses (including needs related to neurodiversity and/or developmental delay) and provide practical strategies for teacher aides to recognise and respond to needs in the educational context.

More initiatives

Funding for the Health and Disability Commissioner to Continue to Address the Backlog of Complaints

This initiative provides one-off funding in 2025/26 to the Health and Disability Commissioner to support the organisation to address the backlog of outstanding complaints.

 

Prescribing Length Increase From 3 Months to 12 Months

This initiative provides funding to support an increase in the maximum prescribing duration limit in the Medicines Regulations 1984 from 3 months to 12 months to allow patients to continue accessing their medicines without needing to interact as frequently with their prescriber. Outyear funding is held in contingency pending updated uptake information.

 

Expanding the Eligibility for the Rates Rebate Scheme to Include SuperGold Cardholders

This initiative provides funding to expand the Rates Rebate Scheme to lift the income threshold to $45,000 for SuperGold Cardholders to access rates rebates and associated administrative costs. Up to 66,000 additional households will be eligible for the rebate as a result of this change. Outyear funding is held in contingency pending updated uptake information.

 

Veterans’ Affairs

This initiative provides temporary transitional funding for additional personnel to enable Veterans’ Affairs to process and manage applications for support from veterans in a timely manner. This funding is time-limited, as the increase in the volume and complexity of claims needing to be processed is expected to be temporary.