Whaikaha, the Ministry of Disabled People, will undergo a restructuring.

It will lose responsibility for delivering support services, and the move to a new approach will be put on hold.

The government announced this decision after a critical review, which stated that the ministry is not equipped to manage the scale and nature of its funding and has inadequate budget controls.

The ministry will become a standalone entity, no longer sharing back-office functions with the Ministry of Social Development (MSD).

It will focus on strategic policy advice, advocacy, and monitoring.

A task force will manage the transfer, and the move to a standalone agency will be completed through an Order in Council in October.

All support services will be moved to MSD, and the rollout of the Enabling Good Lives approach will be put on hold to ensure that access to support is fair and based on need, not location.

Funding levels for residential facility-based care will remain at current levels, with no increases to keep up with inflation.

The government will also reintroduce indicative budgets and monitoring of Needs Assessment and Service Coordination organizations.

In a statement, Minister for Disability Issues Louise Upston said that shifting support service delivery to MSD was significant but necessary.

She emphasized that MSD has the controls and capability to better manage this funding.

This move will also resolve the conflict of the Ministry of Disabled People - Whaikaha having both advocacy and service provision roles, making it a representative and powerful voice in government for disabled New Zealanders.

Upston also mentioned that the government is committed to supporting disabled people, which is why they provided a record $1.

1 billion funding boost to disability support services in this year's Budget.

During a media briefing, the minister couldn't rule out job cuts, saying that a large number of people will be in the new ministry or the Disability Support service, and those details will be worked through at pace.

She stressed that no policy decisions would be made overnight and that the disability community would need to be involved.

The government will not make any decisions regarding eligibility criteria for flexible funding until later this year after consulting with the disability community.

Upston acknowledged the impact of changes to the flexibility funding in March and how distressing they were, assuring that it will never happen again under her watch.

The government will consult with the disabled community to ensure that any changes and additional funding reach those with the highest needs.

Changes to the way disability services were funded were announced via the ministry's social media, not long into the coalition's term.

These moves surprised those using the services, community groups, and then-minister Penny Simmonds.

About a quarter of New Zealanders have some sort of disability.

Disabled people often make heavy use of the health system, but the constraints placed on them by society extend far beyond health to areas like employment, housing, transport, education, and more.

The creation of the ministry, Whaikaha, by the then-Labour government in 2021, promised to be a single point of contact for disabled people.

The government also promised a nationwide rollout of the Enabling Good Lives approach to disability support services, which focuses on giving disabled people more choice in how they can spend the funding allocated to them.

However, the portfolio changed hands a few times, and decisions followed the Heather-Simpson-led Health and Disability review, which, despite its name, failed to meaningfully consult disabled people and related support services.

Advocacy groups had been calling for support to be shifted out of the health system for decades, saying that disability is not solely a health issue.

Disabled people were often being passed between government departments, with different levels of support based arbitrarily on the cause of a disability rather than need.

The disparity between the support offered to disabled people and those who access it through DHBs has also been a major concern.

ACC has also been an issue, as disabled people who needed help because of an injury had to juggle the ACC and welfare systems simultaneously.

Autism NZ's chief executive, Dane Dougan, says their inboxes have been flooded by people wondering what's next during this 'scary time'.

A new Ministry for Disabled People will be set up as the government rolls out a different approach to support services and introduces a new law to make Aotearoa more accessible.

The government should abandon some recommendations in the 'appalling' Health and Disability review and set up a separate ministry, according to people across the disability sector.