OpenAccess

Budget 2025: What’s in it for disabled people?

Callum McMenamin — 23 May 2025

Budget 2025 brings a range of changes for disabled people. Here’s what’s new — and what’s missing.

New web accessibility performance measure

In the Vote Internal Affairs estimates document, the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) has a new performance metric it must include in its Annual Report:

Unfortunately, the estimates document is bungled — the referenced notes don’t match up. Oops 😅 It’s a little sad that I’m now the sort of person who finds errors in budget documents.

I assume “see Note 2” is actually referring to this:

So, what does this mean?

Well, it looks like one of DIA’s performance measures, which used to only look at the accessibility of its own All-of-Government Services Delivery (AoGSD) websites, has been replaced and extended — it’s now a measure that tracks the accessibility of all public government websites.

I assume DIA will be using a system I developed a while back, the Centralised Web Accessibility Checker, to collect the necessary accessibility data for this performance metric.

I think this is a pretty great change; it’s how it should’ve been all along. Given the Government Chief Digital Officer (which resides in DIA) is responsible for the government’s mandatory Web Accessibility Standard, it makes sense that they would actually assess whether agencies are complying with it — even if only through automated methods.

While this system of automated accessibility measurement isn’t as good as manual methods, it’ll still give us at least an indication on how many automatically-detectable accessibility barriers there are. As AI and testing algorithms improve, it should be trivial to upgrade this automated process to take advantage of new tech.

Given the document states the data collection is occurring in May 2025, it’s possible that DIA has either already collected the data, or is about to do so within a week or so at the time of writing. Exciting stuff!

So — keep an eye out for DIA’s next annual report — it should contain some illuminating figures on government website accessibility.

Changes to Disability Support Services funding

While on the surface it appears significant new funding is going to Disability Support Services, in reality all funding increases are for “cost pressures" — basically, the costs of running the system have gone up due to inflation, so government funding has to increase to match it.

One interesting shift: Disability Support Services no longer falls under Vote Social Development, but now has its own dedicated appropriation under Vote Disability Support Services — for the first time.

The quote below shows how practically all changes in the budget for Disability Support Services relate to cost pressures (my emphasis added).

It is unclear what the $5 million for “transformation of the disability system” is actually for — the budget document does not explain it.

Sadly, what we are not seeing, is the broad transformation of New Zealand’s disability support system towards the Enabling Good Lives approach. Enabling Good Lives was planned to expand beyond its 3 demonstration sites, however after Whaikaha — Ministry of Disabled People encountered a funding crisis in 2024, the Government decided to pause the Enabling Good Lives rollout and stripped Whaikaha — Ministry of Disabled People of its administration of Disability Support Services, instead shifting Disability Support Services under MSD’s control.

Funding for Enabling Good Lives in Budget 2025 remains unchanged in practical terms — people who are in existing demonstration sites will likely continue to participate in the modernised system, while the broader rollout is not continuing.

Significant improvement for Vote Education

Hon Erica Stanford announced a significant increase in funding for learning support, claiming it is the largest increase seen in a generation.

The funding increase is ~$2.5 billion over 4-5 years.

Ongoing Resourcing Scheme improvements

One of the most significant and groundbreaking changes is that the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme (ORS) is now uncapped and demand-driven. ORS is designed to provide a package of learning support for disabled students. This scheme was notoriously difficult to access — a third of students who apply are denied access to it.

The Estimates for Vote Education clearly show that ORS is now going to be demand-driven, and there are explicit budget line items for increasing the number of students eligible for ORS.

This is a significant, and positive change.

Teacher aides boosted significantly

The Minister for Education claims that teacher aide hours will gradually ramp up to 900,000 additional hours each year by 2028.

On the face of it, this is a significant and positive move by the Government.

On top of increased teacher aide hours, teacher aides will also receive a new $3 million professional development fund. This will likely improve the quality of support received by disabled students over time.

Improvement to Early Intervention Service

The Early Intervention Service provides learning support for disabled children from birth, to the time they enter primary school. Budget 2025 extends the Early Intervention Service to also cover the first year of primary school — presumably, this smooths the transition to school for disabled children.

Often, when learners transition between education systems, (i.e. from primary, secondary, tertiary) the learning supports are often reset or lost at each transition — you have to start again each time, advocating for changes and access to education.

I think this change to the Early Intervention Service sounds very sensible.

Boost to learning support coordinators

Learning Support Coordinators are a crucial aspect of delivering learning support services for disabled learners — they help to identify, plan for, and implement learning support arrangements for students. Budget 2025 increases funding for Learning Support Coordinators, so they will now be in all schools for Year 1-8 learners.

Specialist learning environments and modifications

$90 million has been allocated to fund approximately 25 new learning support classrooms — these are dedicated, specialised environments for the education of children with high learning support needs.

The $90 million fund also invests in property modifications, which are likely to make existing classrooms more accessible for disabled students.

Conclusion on Vote Education

Overall, I think the changes made to Vote Education in Budget 2025 are actually substantial, and positive. They go above cost pressure adjustments, and actually fund substantial improvements in service provision for disabled learners.

To learn more about the changes to Vote Education, read: Largest boost to Learning Support in a generation — beehive.govt.nz

Abuse in Care redress payments

Vote Social Development allocates $774 million towards redress payments for people who were abused by the State while in care.

Unfortunately, the Government fumbled pre-budget announcements related to abuse in care, causing outrage in the media.

One notable improvement, is this Budget allocates $9 million to Disability Support Services, for the purpose of strengthening processes to prevent and detect abuse in care, i.e. audits.

Establishment of Vote Disabled People

On 1 December 2024, Vote Disabled People was established — which means Whaikaha — Ministry of Disabled People is no longer nestled within Vote Social Development.

Conclusion

While Vote Education saw significant improvements in terms of protecting the rights of disabled people, the rest of the Government leaves much to be desired.

I am excited to see that a new system for measuring government website accessibility is being established. Without proper data and evidence of accessibility barriers at a system-level, it’s difficult to make the case for policy changes and new investment. It all begins with data.

I will be keeping a close watch on how the Government treats disabled people, and holding them to account where necessary. OpenAccess is more than a consultancy — OpenAccess is here to advocate for disabled people’s rights.

— Callum