State Budget Ignores Disability Services Plea

The State Budget has ignored some of Victoria’s most vulnerable people by failing to adequately address the widening gap in funding for disability services, says Scope chief executive officer Diana Heggie.

While Ms Diana Heggie welcomed parts of the budget designed to reinvigorate the State’s job market and economic growth, she said disability service providers had been disappointed by the announcement.

``The State Budget has ignored the disability sector’s plea to urgently inject a $52m lifeline to fix its services’ long-running shortfall in funding,’’ Ms Heggie said.

``This failure to address the widening gap between funding and the actual cost of providing services is threatening the sector’s capacity to deliver services,’’ she said.

Ms Heggie said the Government had relied for too long on organisations such as Scope to work above and beyond what they were resourced to provide.

``To date, we have done our best to fund the shortfall in costs through fundraising and donations. This has become increasingly challenging during the tough economic climate and these resources are drying up.’’

Ms Heggie said the budget also failed to respond to the growing unmet need for services, or take into account that the number of people requiring support would grow over the next financial year.

She said the matter needed to be urgently addressed to prevent the lives of Victorians with disabilities from being left in limbo, such as those of the 1250 people waiting for supported accommodation.

``Unfortunately, many of the Victorians who are being impacted the most can’t speak up about it,’’ Ms Heggie said.

To view the 2009-10 budget for disability services visit: www.premier.vic.gov.au/minister-for-community-services/$86.9-million-investment-in-victorias-disability-services.html