Ability Directory / Guides for providers

Writing an NDIS complaints process a participant can read

Last updated 13 November 2026. Written for NDIS providers. This is general information, not legal or financial advice.

A complaints process only works if the person who needs it can find it, read it and use it. This guide covers what the NDIS rules ask of a registered provider here, and a short check that a participant can read your version. It is general information; your registration group and your own legal advice decide what you must do.

What the rules ask

Two sets of rules matter.

The NDIS Practice Standards, Core Module, clause 13, "Complaints management and resolution", has two lines:

• Each participant has knowledge of and access to the provider's complaints management and resolution system.
• Complaints are welcomed, acknowledged, respected and well managed.

The NDIS (Complaints Management and Resolution) Rules 2018 say what the system must include. Four points from them matter most when you write the participant's copy:

• The system must give an easy and accessible process for making and resolving complaints, and appropriate support and assistance to anyone who wants to make, or has made, a complaint (section 8).
• Reasonable steps must be taken to make sure a person who complains, and each person with disability affected by the complaint, is told how the complaint can be raised with the NDIS Commissioner. Appropriate support and assistance in contacting the Commissioner must also be provided (section 8).
• The details of how to complain to you, and how to complain to the Commissioner, must be readily available and accessible to the public (section 8).
• You must give copies of the documented system in a form that is accessible to people with disability who receive supports from you, and their families, carers and advocates, and help them understand how it works (section 10).

The Rules also ask that a person who complains is not adversely affected for doing so, and is kept informed of progress and the reasons for decisions (section 8). Read the full text for the exact wording and for what applies to your size and classes of supports:

• Practice Standards Rules, Schedule 1, Core Module, clause 13.
• Complaints Management and Resolution Rules, sections 8 and 10.

Make it readable before you hand it over

Having the process written down does not show a participant can use it. A short check:

1. Cut the participant's version to what they need to know and do: how to complain, who to tell, what happens next, and that they can go outside your organisation.
2. Write each point as one short sentence with one idea. Explain any hard word where it appears.
3. Give more than one way to complain, such as in person, by phone, in writing, or through a person they choose. Say who can help them.
4. Add a picture beside each point. This format is Easy Read.
5. Ask a participant, a family member or an advocate to read it and tell you where they got stuck.
6. Change what they flagged. Give the participant a copy, and keep the full text available beside it.

Step 5 matters most. Writing in Easy Read style does not show by itself that a participant will understand the result.

More Easy Read guides

• Guide 1 covers what the Practice Standards ask and which documents to start with
• Guide 2 covers writing a service agreement a participant can read

Sources

• Federal Register of Legislation, National Disability Insurance Scheme (Provider Registration and Practice Standards) Rules 2018, Schedule 1, Core Module, clause 13 (Compilation No. 6, 1 July 2026).
• Federal Register of Legislation, National Disability Insurance Scheme (Complaints Management and Resolution) Rules 2018, sections 8 and 10 (compilation dated 28 January 2026).

General information only, not legal advice. Check the current rules before you act on them.