Concerns about the cost and quality of disability care have increased in recent years with a carer jailed last year for the neglect of disabled Adelaide woman Ann Marie Smith and the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission taking legal action last month against the carer’s employer,Integrity Care.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has committed to funding the scheme in full but warned last year that the scheme needed to be made “fairer and more sustainable” over the long term because the average payment to participants had grown by almost 48 per cent over the past three years.

“While there are many good service providers,we will crack down on the fringe-dwelling unregistered cowboys ripping people off.”

Bill Shorten,Labor’s disability services spokesman

The government proposed a solutionusing independent assessments for all participants to evaluate their eligibility and the support and funding they received,provoking a backlash from social service groups,Labor and the Greens.

State governments also opposed to the federal blueprint and Government Services Minister Linda Reynoldsdropped the plans last July.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg offered voters a guarantee on NDIS funding in the budget on March 29 when outlays on the scheme rose to $157.8 billion over four years.

“In this budget,NDIS funding grows in every year. Under the Coalition,the NDIS will always be fully funded,” he said in his budget speech.

Shorten said the government had created a false argument about the cost pressures on the scheme when the system needed improvements to its administration rather than funding cuts.

“These guys have created a sustainability crisis through incompetent administration,” he said.

“There are thousands of people now who have to go to court to access or keep their funding. The scheme is being strangled in Liberal red tape.”

The Labor policy remains opposed to the independent assessment proposal and instead commits to expanding the National Disability Insurance Agency,which oversees the scheme,so it has more staff to run the scheme and make decisions about who requires help.

“Dealing with the NDIS should not be like having a second full-time job. We will return the NDIS to its original objective because at the moment,even if you get a good plan,there’s a constant fear it will be cut when it gets reviewed,” the policy states.

The Labor promise to improve efficiency is based on streamlining the planning process for better initial plans and setting up an expert group that would guarantee that plans would not be arbitrarily cut. Part of this would include a different pathway for appeals against the peak agency’s decisions about individual plans.

Shorten has taken aim at the government for spending $28 million in legal fees at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal over six months to reject applications from people with disability,turning the court system into the decision-making process about the quality of care.

It would also boost the number of people with disability on the board of the agency and appoint a senior officer at the agency to focus on service delivery in remote parts of Australia.

The federal budget of May 2018 forecast total outlays of $83.4 billion on the NDIS by state and federal governments,with the federal government contributing $43.2 billion.

The government says those outlays,across all governments,are now forecast to reach $157.8 billion over four years.

Another key spending item,the Disability Support Pension,is expected to cost $18.3 billion this year and grow slightly to $21.3 billion in 2026,with all the cost borne by the Commonwealth.

Jacqueline Maley cuts through the noise of the federal election campaign with news,views and expert analysis. Sign up to our Australia Votes 2022 newsletterhere.