DPSC Stream 3 (Information, Advice and Referral) — DAS Project Concepts

Grant: Disability Peer Support and Connections Program 2026-27, GO8264, Dept of Health, Disability and Ageing. Closes 2:00pm AEST 2 July 2026. Activity starts 1 July 2027. Stream 3 pool: ~$100M (GST excl) over 5 years. Min $150k/yr, max $1.25M/yr per application. This file: two fully developed concepts (A = DAS individual; B = DAS as consortium lead) + two rejected alternates. Built 11 Jun 2026 against Guidelines V2 (read in full), DAS FY27 Verified Facts, Grants Deep Dive Handoff, FAQs v3 (searched), and targeted web research (cited). Status: concept stage for internal decision — not application text.

0. Stream 3 rules digest (verified against Guidelines V2)

Cat A vs Cat B — exact definitions

• Category A (3-year, to 30 Jun 2030): “3-year grants for activities only focused on developing or updating existing resources or services” (§2.1.3); §3.1.3 calls them grants for “‘stand-alone’ resources or information products.”
• Category B (5-year, 1 Jul 2027 – 30 Jun 2032): “grants for activities that include ongoing services and may also include resource development. ‘Ongoing services’ refers to IAR services that can be delivered on a regular, on-going basis over 5 years. For example, phonelines, on-going outreach, or maintaining an online information hub” (§2.1.3).

Verdict: Cat B is correct for both concepts. Both are ongoing services (staffed front door / network of access points + maintained knowledge base) with embedded resource development. Cat A would only fit if DAS stripped each concept back to a resource-production project with no service component — that was Alternate 1, rejected (see §4). Cat B also matches DAS’s strategic need: 5 years of recurrent revenue against the FY28 cliff. No reason to revisit.

Stream 3 objectives (Guidelines vocabulary — use these phrases in outcome mapping)

1. “Provide quality, evidence-based information and advice, informed by those with lived experience.”
2. “Improve the accessibility and relevance of information and advice across Australia.”
3. “Provide nationally consistent and locally tailored information on disability.”
4. “Reduce information gaps across the disability community including information on where to find support through mainstream services.”
5. “Be responsive to the unique needs of: people with different disability experiences; people with disability who experience other intersectional characteristics (e.g. First Nations, CALD, LGBTIQA+).”

Intended outcomes: people with disability, families and carers “can easily find and use nationally consistent, tailored information that: is accessible (easy to find, use and understand), including information that is culturally safe and appropriate; is relevant and up to date; reflects their lived experience; empowers people with disability to make decisions, assert their rights, access the services they need and thrive; empowers families and carers.”

Terminology trap (§2.1.3, last para): IAR “will not fund dedicated navigation functions for future Foundational Supports or the broader disability ecosystem” — but explicitly recognises IAR products “may be used by people within the disability ecosystem, like navigators and advocates.” → Never call either service a “navigator” in application text. It is an information, advice and referral service. The word navigator appears nowhere in either concept below.

§5.4 hard exclusions relevant to Stream 3 (exact text)

• “delivery of systemic or individual advocacy (excluding self-advocacy)”
• “funding in support of individuals” / “to support medical or diagnostic referrals”
• “research purposes where research is the sole grant activity”
• “activities that duplicate existing ILC Program funded projects unless adding additional scale and/or scope”
• “activities that duplicate those undertaken by NDIS Partners in the Community (Local Area Coordination and/or Early Childhood Early Intervention) organisations”
• “activities duplicate the function of the Disability Gateway (e.g. activities that seek to collate information on all disability-services, across all disability types, onto a single platform)”
• “subsidy of general ongoing administration” / “salaries where the salary forms part of the organisation’s/individual’s usual responsibility”
• “activities that are already funded on an ongoing basis by other Australian, state or territory, or local government programs”
• No vehicles/land purchase (leases OK, ≤10% or $50k), no major capital works, no overseas travel.

Note the Gateway exclusion’s own example defines the prohibited shape: all services × all disability types × single platform. Locally tailored, format-transformed, culturally adapted, human-assisted IAR is not just permitted — it is what objectives 2, 3 and 5 ask for. FAQs v3 contains zero further Gateway clarification (searched full text), so this Guidelines wording is the canonical test. FAQ 9.14 confirms “locally tailored applications are acceptable” with SA3 targeting; FAQ 9.15 confirms shared/community spaces count as remote delivery addresses; FAQ 2.6 confirms applications “may include a proposal to continue or expand activities which are currently or were previously funded under former Commonwealth grant programs – including the ILC program” (cease old arrangement by 30 Jun 2027).

Other rules that shaped these concepts

• People with disability MUST be involved in design and implementation (§5.1) — DAS’s Leadership Group / Advisory Committee (lineage to CAPS ToR, May 2016) carries this for both concepts.
• Remote delivery test (§5.2): ASGS-remote category + existing physical address in the area or consortium partner with one. DAS’s Alice Springs office sits in ASGS Remote Australia; Barkly delivery uses community spaces (FAQ 9.15).
• Two applications max per stream: one individual + one as consortium lead, and they “must be different and cannot be seeking grant funding for the same activity/ies” (§7). Concepts A and B are deliberately different activity types (regional front-door service vs shared production platform + partner-delivered access points) and de-overlapped in Central Australia (see B.11).
• Mid-point performance review by an independent third party is required; up to 15% of grant may be budgeted for external evaluation coordination (§4.5).
• DSI Act: an IAR service involving “substantial one-on-one contact” or “regular engagement… over a prolonged period” may be assessed as a regulated activity → Certificate of Compliance (NSDS) or a determination giving up to 15 months to obtain one (§4.3). Do not start the CoC process before outcomes are announced. FAQ 9.10 confirms CoC costs can be budgeted.
• Condition for Participation (§4.4): only triggers for activities under “Individual and Family Capacity Building 2025-26 (Closed Non-Competitive)” or “Information Access and Referral 2025-26 (Closed Non-Competitive)”. DAS holds neither directly (Speaking Up is the ILC Individual Capacity Building grant executed Jun 2024, ending 30 Jun 2027 on its own schedule; SACID/DANA arrangements are sub-MOUs held by the lead bodies). Stream 3 risk: low — but state agreement to the CfP in the form regardless (mandatory declaration) and let the department test similarity.
• Assessment: 3 equally weighted criteria, 3500 chars each, must score ≥3/5 on each. §6.1 lets the department prefer “gaps in service”, “prevalence of need in specific locations”, “experience delivering to targeted cohorts” and §8.1 allows funding lower-ranked applications “filling an identified gap in disability services” — structural advantage for remote NT applications.
• 10% of total program funding prioritised to services delivered through or in partnership with the community-controlled sector and First Nations organisations (§3.1) — both concepts are built to qualify via formal First Nations partnerships.

Evidence base (web research, 11 Jun 2026 — citable)

1. Disability Gateway scope: national phone line 1800 643 787 (information officers, business-hours weekday service) + website disabilitygateway.gov.au; language access is via the Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS, 13 14 50); promotes Easy Read and Auslan/sign-language formats; no local/physical presence, no regional outreach arm. Sources: https://www.disabilitygateway.gov.au/about ; https://www.health.gov.au/contacts/disability-gateway . TIS’s 100+ languages are overwhelmingly migrant community languages — Central Australian First Nations languages are serviced by the NT Aboriginal Interpreter Service (1800 334 944), which lists Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, Warlpiri, Eastern/Central Arrernte, Anmatyerre and Pintupi-Luritja among its working languages: https://nt.gov.au/community/interpreting-and-translating-services/aboriginal-interpreter-service . Interpreting on request ≠ standing accessible information products in language — that product layer does not exist.
2. DSS’s own 12-month evaluation of the Disability Gateway (process and outcomes evaluation) examined “whether the service is meeting the needs of people with disability, their families and carers”: https://www.dss.gov.au/disability-gateway-evaluation-report (also catalogued at https://apo.org.au/node/319830 ). Cite as evidence the Commonwealth itself treats Gateway reach as an open question — pull the PDF before drafting final application text for any quotable awareness/reach figures.
3. NDIS Review supporting paper, “Improving access to supports in remote and First Nations communities”: persistent thin markets — service gaps of 14% in remote and 27% in very remote areas, exceeding 40% in some locations; plan utilisation in very remote areas just 52%; complex policies and processes are a named information barrier for First Nations people; recommends community-based, culturally appropriate connector-style approaches. https://www.ndisreview.gov.au/resources/paper/improving-access-supports-remote-and-first-nations-communities/3-opportunities
4. NT cohort: First Nations participants are roughly half of all NT NDIS participants (~50.5% per NT quarterly performance dashboard) vs ~7-8% nationally — the NT is categorically different. https://www.ndis.gov.au/publications/quarterly-reports ; only ~2% of new participants nationally live in remote/very remote areas.
5. Prevalence: after age adjustment, First Nations people are 1.5× as likely to live with disability (42% vs 29%) and 2.0× as likely to have profound/severe core activity limitation (7.6% vs 3.9%) (2022-23 NATSIHS, AIHW Indigenous HPF measure 1.14). https://www.indigenoushpf.gov.au/measures/1-14-disability
6. Disability Royal Commission Final Report Vol 9 (First Nations people with disability) recommends expanding community-connector-style programs and funding First Nations community-controlled organisations to deliver flexible supports — the policy tailwind for locally delivered, culturally safe information access. https://disability.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/final-report-volume-9-first-nations-people-disability

CONCEPT A — individual application

A.1 Working title

The Centralian Disability Information Service (CDIS): locally verified information, advice and warm referral for Central Australia and the Barkly — in first languages and accessible formats.

(≤250 chars. A First Nations language name for the service will be co-designed with language authorities and the lived-experience Leadership Group post-award — pending cultural review; do not author one in the application.)

A.2 One-liner

A five-year, Cat B information, advice and referral service that answers disability questions for Central Australia and the Barkly the way the national Disability Gateway structurally cannot: in Pitjantjatjara, Warlpiri, Arrernte and Warumungu, in Easy Read/audio/video, through a locally verified pathways knowledge base, a staffed local front door and warm referral that walks alongside people to the right service door — without ever acting on their behalf.

A.3 ~150-word description (≤1000 chars plain text)

The Centralian Disability Information Service gives people with disability, families, carers and kin in Central Australia and the Barkly trusted, accessible answers about disability, rights, supports and services. A small local team operates a weekday phone/SMS line, a drop-in point in Alice Springs, and scheduled outreach to remote communities, backed by a continuously verified knowledge base of regional service pathways. Every priority topic is published in plain English, Easy Read, audio and video, and in first languages — Pitjantjatjara, Warlpiri, Eastern/Central Arrernte and Warumungu — co-produced with interpreters and reviewed by lived-experience and cultural authorities. The service informs, advises and warm-refers (including to advocacy, the Disability Gateway and mainstream services); it never takes over. People with disability govern content priorities through DAS’s decade-old lived-experience structures. AI-assisted production keeps a 2.6 FTE team’s information current, multi-format and multi-lingual at a cost no call-centre model can match.

(~990 chars)

A.4 Problem and evidence

• The information system fails precisely where disability is most concentrated. First Nations people are 1.5× as likely to live with disability and 2.0× as likely to have profound/severe limitation (AIHW HPF 1.14, 2022-23 NATSIHS). Roughly half of NT NDIS participants are First Nations (NT quarterly dashboard). Yet very remote plan utilisation is ~52% and remote service gaps run 14-27%, over 40% in places (NDIS Review remote/First Nations paper) — people hold entitlements they cannot convert into supports, and the first missing link is usable information.
• The national layer is English-first, phone/web-first, and placeless. The Disability Gateway offers a national phone line and website with TIS interpreting on request; TIS’s coverage is built around migrant languages, while Central Australian languages sit with the NT Aboriginal Interpreter Service — and no agency maintains standing disability information products in Pitjantjatjara, Warlpiri, Arrernte or Warumungu. For oral-tradition, low-digital-bandwidth communities, “ring a national 1800 number” is not access. DSS’s own 12-month Gateway evaluation interrogated whether the service meets needs; the NDIS Review and DRC Vol 9 both land on locally delivered, culturally safe information as the missing layer.
• There is no NT regional disability information service at scale. NT.GOV.AU’s disability pages route people to the NDIS line and national services. The only standing regional info function is DAS’s own NT-funded DAIS — 0.5 FTE across Central Australia + Barkly (~$80k/yr to 2029) — a triage desk, not an accessible-information service. There is no LAC presence in Central Australia (NDIA remote delivery uses Remote Community Connectors focused on NDIS access, not whole-of-life disability information).
• DAS holds primary evidence of unmet demand. The DRI consultations (NT-funded, 2024-26, $300k, Central Australia + Barkly) documented systemic gaps in plain-language information across transport, built environment and health — the Leadership Group’s three voted priorities — and DAS’s NDAP/Appeals intake history shows a steady stream of “wrong door” contacts that are information needs, not advocacy matters.

A.5 Activities (tech / human / partner flagged)

1. Local IAR front door (human) — staffed phone + SMS line (weekday business hours), drop-in at DAS Alice Springs office, scheduled visiting presence in Tennant Creek and remote community circuits (Barkly + MacDonnell + APY-side NT communities), bookable interpreter-supported sessions (AIS). Enquiry handling = inform, advise, warm-refer; never represent.
2. Regional Pathways Knowledge Base (tech) — structured, source-verified knowledge base of disability-relevant pathways for the two SA3s: NDIS access in region, non-NDIS/mainstream supports, transport, equipment, housing, health interfaces, education, Centrelink/employment-services interfaces, carer supports. Quarterly verification cycle with named source owners. Deliberately scoped to region and pathway depth — not a directory of all services nationally (see A.11 Gateway subsection). Staff answer from a RAG-backed console so a small team gives consistent, current answers.
3. Multi-format publishing engine (tech + partner) — one canonical content source per topic auto-drafted into plain English, Easy Read, audio scripts, captioned video and print; human-edited; then co-produced into first languages with NT Aboriginal Interpreter Service interpreters and community voice talent, with cultural review sign-off before release (nothing published in language without cultural authority approval). Audio-first by design for oral cultures and low literacy. Distribution: community noticeboards, clinic waiting rooms (ACCHO partners), USB/offline packs for low-bandwidth communities, community radio spots, plus web.
4. Warm referral protocol (human + partner) — documented three-way referral practice into named regional services, advocacy providers (including DAS’s separately funded NDAP service, behind a conflict-of-interest firewall — see A.11), the Disability Gateway for out-of-region/national questions, NDIS/RCCs, health and legal partners. Follow-up contact confirms the referral landed. Hard boundary: max facilitation, zero representation.
5. Lived-experience governance and co-design (human) — DAS’s Leadership Group + Advisory Committee (continuous lineage from the 2016 CAPS group; ~26-30 members; Barkly delivery via Frank Curtis) set the content roadmap (seeded by their voted priorities: Transport, Built Environment, Health), test every product, and co-present community sessions. Paid participation.
6. Continuous improvement + evaluation (human + partner) — DEX-aligned data collection from day one, independent mid-point performance review (Y3), outcomes evaluation (Y5).

A.6 Outputs and outcomes mapped to Stream 3 objectives (Guidelines vocabulary) + Cat B service-level commitments

Cat B service-level commitments (credible at 2.6 FTE + casual pool):

• Phone/SMS/drop-in front door open 5 days/week, business hours, 48 weeks/yr; voicemail/SMS triaged same business day.
• 95% of enquiries receive information or advice within 2 business days; interpreter-supported responses within 5 business days.
• Warm referrals completed (three-way contact made) within 5 business days, with a follow-up touch within 4 weeks.
• Quarterly remote outreach circuit: minimum 6 community visits/quarter across the two SA3s (Tennant Creek monthly presence via partner-hosted community space).
• Knowledge base: 100% of pathway entries re-verified at least quarterly; online resources ≥99% availability; WCAG 2.1 AA minimum (Guidelines §5.5 requires WCAG compliance).
• Production: ≥12 new/updated topic packs per year, each in ≥4 formats; priority packs in ≥4 first languages; nothing released in language without documented cultural review.
• Complaints + incident management per DSI Act Rules 2023 (DAS systems already operating for NDAP).

A.7 Five-year arc

• Y1 (FY28) — Stand up + first content wave. Recruit (Coordinator Q1, identified IAR Officer Q1-2, Content Producer Q2), build knowledge base + console, cultural governance protocols with language authorities, soft-launch front door by Q2, first 8 topic packs (seeded from DRI findings: transport, built environment, health), baseline data. CoC/determination process if assessed regulated.
• Y2 — Full service. Full SLA operation, 12 packs, first-language coverage of top 10 topics, Barkly circuit embedded, first annual community report-back (“you said / we built”).
• Y3 — Mid-point review + deepen. Independent mid-point performance review (§4.5); refresh content roadmap from review + Leadership Group vote; add second-wave languages/formats (e.g. Luritja, Alyawarr — pending community demand evidence and cultural review); publish service-pattern insights back to the department and regional planners (Closing the Gap PR4).
• Y4 — Consolidate + share practice. Codify the model (small-team multi-lingual IAR playbook); share methods with other DPSC IAR grantees (“sector strengthening” performance indicator); explore cross-border NT/SA referral protocols with NPY-region services.
• Y5 — Sustain + transition-proof. Outcomes evaluation; refresh all evergreen packs; document handover-grade knowledge base so the asset survives any funding transition (“sustainability of outcomes” indicator); position for DPSC re-funding.

A.8 Cohort + geography

• Cohort: people with disability under 65, their families, carers and kin, in Central Australia and the Barkly — all disability types; primary intersectional focus First Nations people with disability (≈50% of NT NDIS participants; far higher share in remote communities), plus rural/remote people with disability generally. Self-advocacy information is in scope (explicitly excepted from the advocacy exclusion).
• Geography (SA3s, ASGS 2021): Alice Springs SA3 and Barkly SA3 (verify exact ASGS 2021 codes against ABS allocation files before submission). Both fall in ASGS Remote/Very Remote Australia; DAS’s existing Alice Springs office satisfies the §5.2 remote-presence test; Tennant Creek + community delivery uses shared community spaces (FAQ 9.15 confirms acceptable). Service population ~50-55k people across ~1M km², ~40%+ First Nations.

A.9 Indicative budget (GST excl, $‘000) — total ≈ $2.47M over 5 years

Indexation from Y2 at department discretion (§3.2) — not assumed above. All lines map to §5.3 eligible expenditure (wages incl. super, IT hardware/software directly related, short-term consultants, travel, operational costs). No vehicles purchased, no capital works, no general admin subsidy. New positions only — no salaries that are “part of the organisation’s usual responsibility.”

A.10 Consortium table

n/a — individual application. Non-consortium delivery relationships (supplier/MOU, not consortium members): NT Aboriginal Interpreter Service (interpreting/translation supply); ACCHO distribution points (Congress clinics Central Australia, Anyinginyi Tennant Creek — MOUs for display/distribution + visiting space); referral MOUs with regional services and the Disability Gateway. These appear in Criterion 2 as “partnerships and linkages”, not in a consortium structure.

A.11 Eligibility self-check (§5.4 trap-by-trap)

A.11.1 Disability Gateway differentiation (the airtight version)

The exclusion (verbatim): grant money cannot be used for “activities [that] duplicate the function of the Disability Gateway (e.g. activities that seek to collate information on all disability-services, across all disability types, onto a single platform).”

The prohibited shape is a second Gateway: a national, all-services, all-disability-types collation platform. CDIS is none of those four things:

1. Not national — two SA3s. The Gateway is a national phone line + website with no physical presence, no outreach arm, and no regional verification capability. CDIS is a place-based service for Alice Springs + Barkly SA3s with a front door you can walk into, a quarterly outreach circuit, and pathway entries verified against named local source owners every quarter. The Gateway lists; CDIS verifies, locally, continuously.
2. Not collation — transformation and depth. CDIS does not aggregate “all disability-services… onto a single platform.” It maintains pathway-depth knowledge for one region (eligibility steps, real local contact points, what actually happens when you ring, what to bring, what the wait is) and transforms national content into formats and languages the Gateway does not produce: Easy Read + audio + video + Pitjantjatjara, Warlpiri, Eastern/Central Arrernte, Warumungu. The Gateway’s language model is reactive interpreting via TIS (13 14 50), whose 100+ languages are overwhelmingly migrant languages; Central Australian languages sit with the NT Aboriginal Interpreter Service, and no agency publishes standing disability information products in these languages. CDIS fills a product gap the Gateway’s own design cannot reach.
3. Warm referral vs directory listing. Gateway information officers connect callers to services nationally — a listing-and-handover model. CDIS completes three-way warm referrals into named regional services with follow-up confirmation. That is the relational access mode the NDIS Review and DRC Vol 9 identify as what works in remote First Nations contexts (community-connector evidence base).
4. Complementary by design — in writing. CDIS will (a) use the Gateway as its referral destination for out-of-region and national enquiries, (b) source its “nationally consistent” content layer from Gateway/Commonwealth materials rather than re-authoring them, and (c) offer verified regional updates back. A referral-protocol MOU with the Gateway operator will be sought in Y1 and the intent stated in the application. CDIS markets itself as the regional last mile of the national system, not an alternative to it. The Guidelines themselves demand “nationally consistent and locally tailored information” (objective 3) and information that is “culturally safe and appropriate” — CDIS is the locally-tailored half, in the one region where the national half demonstrably thins out (remote service gaps 14-27%+; very remote utilisation 52% — NDIS Review).

Things CDIS will never build (stated in application): a national directory; an all-of-Australia search platform; a generalist 1800 line marketed beyond the region; any product collating “all disability services” beyond the two SA3s.

A.12 Why DAS wins

• Only credible owner of the gap. 15+ years of NT disability service delivery (NDIS Appeals since 2016, NDAP since 2017 in DEX, ILC since 2019), the NT Government’s chosen provider for the region’s only standing disability information function (DAIS, to 2029), and the DRI consultation mandate (2024-26) that mapped the region’s information gaps — DAS literally wrote the evidence base it is now proposing to act on.
• §6.1/§8.1 work in DAS’s favour: “gaps in service”, “prevalence of need in specific locations”, “experience delivering to targeted cohorts”, and the gap-filling discretion all point at remote NT — where few competitive applications will exist. The department needs someone credible here; CDIS is the only shape on offer with a local address (a §5.2 requirement competitors mostly can’t meet).
• Lived-experience governance is real, not constructed for the bid: continuous structures since 2016 (CAPS → Leadership Group + Advisory Committee), with voted priorities and ministerial/ABC visibility — directly satisfying §5.1’s mandatory involvement and the “involvement of people with disability” performance indicator.
• Tech-first cost structure. 2.6 FTE + AI-assisted production delivers a multi-lingual multi-format service whose like-for-like call-centre/manual-production equivalent would cost 3-4×; that is the Criterion 3 value-for-money story, with the platform cost amortising over 5 years.
• First Nations delivery credibility: Barkly delivery through Frank Curtis’s lineage, ACCHO distribution partnerships, identified position, cultural review gate — plus the 10% First Nations partnership prioritisation pool.

A.13 Kill risks + mitigations

A.14 First Nations partnership angle (concrete)

• Formal partnerships (letters of support by execution; named in Criterion 2): NT Aboriginal Interpreter Service (translation/interpreting supply agreement); Central Australian Aboriginal Congress (clinic distribution + health-pathway verification); Anyinginyi Health Aboriginal Corporation (Tennant Creek host site for the Barkly presence + distribution); a Central Australian language centre / Batchelor Institute for orthography and recording standards (approach in application window).
• Identified employment: 1.0 FTE First Nations IAR Officer + trainee pathway; community voice talent paid for every language recording; Leadership Group sitting fees.
• Cultural governance with teeth: a First Nations-majority content review panel holds sign-off rights on every in-language and culturally specific product — DAS cannot publish over its objection. Service’s language name co-designed post-award (pending cultural review).
• Closing the Gap mapping (§2.2): PR4 (“shared access to data and information at a regional level”) is the program’s own framing for exactly this activity; PR1 via the partnership agreements; PR2 via ACCHO-hosted delivery and paid roles. Application targets the §3.1 10% First Nations partnership prioritisation explicitly: “delivered in partnership with the community-controlled sector.”
• Design choices that are cultural choices: audio-first products; kin/carer framing of content (matching how decisions are actually made); interpreter-supported advice sessions rather than English-only phone scripts; Barkly delivery continuing the Frank Curtis model of local lived-experience leadership.

CONCEPT B — consortium-lead application

B.1 Working title

Remote Reach: a cross-border consortium making disability information, advice and referral genuinely accessible in remote Australia — one shared production engine, trusted local doors.

(≤250 chars.)

B.2 One-liner

DAS leads a consortium of First Nations and disability organisations across the NT, SA and WA tri-state centre and the Top End: DAS builds and runs the shared accessible-information production engine (Easy Read, audio, video, Auslan, first languages, offline-ready) and the IAR practice framework; partner organisations deliver the information, advice and warm referral through doors remote communities already trust — fixing the remote last mile the national system has never reached.

B.3 ~150-word description (≤1000 chars plain text)

Remote Reach is a five-year consortium service making trusted disability information genuinely accessible across remote Australia, starting with the NT and the NT/SA/WA cross-border region. DAS, as lead, operates the shared infrastructure: a production engine that turns verified disability information into Easy Read, audio, video, Auslan and First Nations language versions, distribution built for low-bandwidth communities, a common IAR practice framework, training, and consortium-wide reporting. Consortium partners — disability advocacy, legal and Aboriginal community-controlled organisations — deliver information, advice and warm referral through local access points their communities already trust, adapting content to local language and culture. People with disability govern priorities through partner lived-experience structures and a First Nations governance group with decision rights. The model is built to scale: new partner regions join from Year 3, sharing one engine instead of rebuilding it, with practice and products shared across the DPSC network.

(~990 chars)

B.4 Problem and evidence

• Remote Australia is where the national information system breaks. Only ~2% of new NDIS participants live in remote/very remote Australia; very remote plan utilisation sits at ~52%; remote/very remote service gaps run 14-27%, beyond 40% in places (NDIS Review remote and First Nations paper). The NDIS Review’s named remedies — community connectors, cultural brokers, community-controlled delivery — are relational and local, not phone-line-national. DRC Final Report Vol 9 makes the same call.
• Information products don’t exist in the languages of the people most affected. First Nations people: 1.5× disability prevalence, 2.0× profound/severe (AIHW HPF 1.14). In the NT, roughly half of NDIS participants are First Nations. The Disability Gateway’s language pathway (TIS) doesn’t produce standing products in Central/Western Desert or Top End languages, and no other agency does either. Each remote organisation that wants accessible local information currently has to build production capability alone — none can afford to.
• The cross-border problem is unowned. The NPY tri-state region (NT/SA/WA) is one cultural and family footprint governed by three state service systems plus the NDIS. Nobody holds cross-border disability information; people fall between jurisdictional versions of every pathway. A consortium with partners on all sides of the borders is the only structural answer.
• Duplication is the current model. Every remote advocacy/legal/community org separately answers the same questions badly photocopied. One shared engine + many trusted local doors is the efficient shape — and matches the program’s own design ambitions (“support to innovate, share and scale best-practice”; “hub and spoke models” named in §5.2 as a legitimate route to coverage).

B.5 Activities (tech / human / partner flagged)

1. Shared accessible-information production engine (tech — DAS) — central pipeline: verified canonical content → Easy Read, plain English, audio, captioned video, Auslan (commissioned), and first-language versions; remote-appropriate distribution kit (offline/USB packs, print, radio scripts, clinic screens, low-bandwidth web). Partners commission products through a request queue with a 10-business-day turnaround SLA. AI-assisted drafting/translation pre-processing with human editorial and mandatory cultural review sign-off by language authorities before any in-language release.
2. Trusted local IAR access points (human — partners) — each delivery partner operates an IAR access point (min 15 hrs/wk) inside its existing trusted service: information, advice and warm referral, using the shared knowledge framework, adapted to local pathways. Initial footprint: NPY tri-state region (NPYWC), Top End (Darwin Community Legal Service + IADA), Barkly (Anyinginyi), Central Australia health interface (Congress), with intellectual-disability-accessible practice across the network (Inclusion NT).
3. IAR practice framework + training (human — DAS lead) — common practice standards (inform/advise/refer boundary, warm referral protocol, advocacy escalation firewall, safeguarding), induction + biannual practice forums, communities of practice across partners.
4. First Nations governance + cultural adaptation layer (partner-led) — First Nations governance group (majority ACCO-appointed) with decision rights over cultural adaptation, language priorities and community protocols; paid local cultural advisors at each access point; data sovereignty commitments (community-level data shared back to communities — Closing the Gap PR4).
5. Consortium data, reporting + shared learning (tech + human — DAS) — single DEX-aligned data framework, quarterly consortium reporting (Guidelines note consortia “may be required to provide reports detailing each consortium member’s contribution”), open practice-sharing with other DPSC grantees (“sector strengthening” indicator).
6. Scale pathway (partner pipeline) — open architecture to onboard 2-3 additional remote-region partners from Y3 (DANA-network members in WA/QLD/SA), each reusing the engine — the §3.2 “ability to scale toward expanded rural/remote service coverage” logic.

B.6 Outputs and outcomes mapped to Stream 3 objectives + Cat B service-level commitments

Cat B service-level commitments (network):

• Every access point open ≥15 hrs/week, 48 weeks/yr; network total ≥5 access points from Y2 (≥75 staffed hours/week across remote Australia).
• Partner content requests turned around in ≤10 business days (engine SLA); urgent corrections in 48 hours.
• ≥20 new/updated multi-format product sets per year network-wide; priority sets in ≥6 first languages by Y3 (cultural review permitting).
• Warm referrals completed within 5 business days at every access point; common follow-up standard.
• Training: 100% of access-point staff complete IAR induction before solo delivery; 2 practice forums/yr.
• Reporting: quarterly consortium performance report incl. per-partner contribution; DEX-aligned dataset from Y1.
• Digital layer ≥99% availability; WCAG 2.1 AA minimum.

B.7 Five-year arc

• Y1 (FY28): consortium agreements executed (letters of support already required at execution per §7.2); DAS platform team recruited; engine v1 + practice framework live by Q3; first 4 access points operating by Q4 (staged partner onboarding); First Nations governance group seated Q1-2.
• Y2: full network SLAs; 20-product cadence; first cross-border (NT/SA/WA) pathway maps published; first annual community report-backs in every region.
• Y3: independent mid-point performance review across the network (§4.5); onboard 1-2 new partner regions (DANA pipeline); language set expands per governance-group priorities.
• Y4: scale consolidation; publish the shared-engine model as open practice for the DPSC cohort (“innovate, share and scale best-practice”); interoperability with other IAR grantees’ content.
• Y5: outcomes evaluation; transition-proofing (every partner exits with a durable local knowledge base + trained staff even if the consortium ends); re-funding positioning.

B.8 Cohort + geography

• Cohort: people with disability under 65, families, carers and kin in remote and very remote Australia — all disability types; primary focus First Nations people with disability (the majority cohort in the target SA3s); intellectual-disability accessibility as a network-wide practice standard (Inclusion NT).
• Geography (SA3s, ASGS 2021 — verify codes against ABS allocation files before submission): NT: Alice Springs, Barkly, Katherine, Daly–Tiwi–West Arnhem, East Arnhem, Darwin-region SA3s for Top End access point reach; SA: Outback – North and East (APY Lands); WA: Goldfields (Ngaanyatjarra Lands). Classification: jurisdictional/multi-state (NT + cross-border SA/WA), remote/very remote concentration. §5.2 remote test met via DAS Alice Springs office + each partner’s existing physical addresses (the consortium route §5.2 explicitly names). Y3+ scale regions (e.g. Kimberley, NW Qld) named as growth, not commitments.

B.9 Indicative budget (GST excl, $‘000) — total ≈ $5.70M over 5 years

~40% of steady-state funding flows to partners as sub-grants (~45% if language pool + governance fees counted) — the money-in-communities optic assessors and the 10% First Nations prioritisation pool both reward. Y3+ partner onboarding funded by holding engine costs flat while reweighting within the cap (or a variation request if the department invites scaling).

B.10 Consortium table

§7.2 mechanics: only DAS submits and signs; partner letters of support are required prior to execution (not at application), must cover roles/responsibilities, resources, experience, child-safety compliance and a management contact. Partner ineligibility screens (Redress non-joiners, WGEA non-compliant list, NDIS banning orders) to be run on every partner before naming them in the form. Consortium agreement modelled on the DANA Partner Agreement DAS already operates under (known mechanics: payment against invoice, withholding rights, reporting schedule, IP clauses — negotiate IP to sit with the consortium/communities for language products, pending cultural review protocols).

B.11 Eligibility self-check (§5.4) + Gateway differentiation

B.11.1 Disability Gateway differentiation (consortium version)

The §5.4 example prohibits “collat[ing] information on all disability-services, across all disability types, onto a single platform.” Remote Reach’s architecture is the inverse of a platform play:

1. It is not a public collation platform at all. The “engine” is production infrastructure — a content factory and practice framework — not a public national directory. The public never visits “the Remote Reach platform” to search all services; they walk into (or ring) a local trusted organisation whose staff inform, advise and warm-refer. The deliverable is accessible products and staffed local practice, not a website that aggregates services.
2. Coverage-class is remote Australia, not Australia. The Gateway exists for everyone; Remote Reach exists for the ~2%-of-new-participants slice in remote/very remote areas where the Gateway’s phone/web model demonstrably thins out (52% very remote utilisation; 27-40% service gaps; NDIS Review). This is the gap-filling shape §8.1 reserves discretion for.
3. It produces what the Gateway doesn’t and can’t: standing information products in First Nations languages (Western Desert and Top End), Easy Read co-designed with people with intellectual disability, audio/video for oral-first communication, offline/low-bandwidth distribution for communities where “visit the website” fails, and cross-border NT/SA/WA pathway translation no national generalist service maintains. Gateway language access = reactive TIS interpreting; Remote Reach = proactive product in language with cultural sign-off.
4. Warm referral through trusted intermediaries vs national cold handover — the community-connector evidence base (NDIS Review; DRC Vol 9) is the design template, delivered by ACCOs and trusted local orgs, which a national line cannot replicate.
5. Complementarity in writing: the Gateway is the referral destination for national/out-of-footprint enquiries; canonical national content is sourced from Commonwealth/Gateway materials, not re-authored; verified remote-pathway corrections offered back. Stated in the application; MOU sought in Y1.

Will never build: a national public directory or search platform; an all-disability-services aggregation layer; a competing national 1800 line.

B.12 Why DAS wins (as lead)

• The only org that can hold this particular ring: remote-NT-based (satisfies §5.2 remote presence in its own right), 15+ years of delivery across exactly the cohort and geography, and the in-house technical capability to actually build the engine (production AI/content pipelines are demonstrated DAS-adjacent capability, not a vendor promise). National players have no central-desert credibility; ACCOs have community trust but no IAR production infrastructure; DAS gluing both is the design.
• Consortium mechanics from both ends: DAS currently operates inside three multi-tier consortium chains (DSS→SACID→DAS; DSS→Inclusion Australia→DANA→DAS) — it knows sub-grant reporting, payment-against-deliverables and partner-agreement failure modes from the receiving end, and will run its own sub-grants accordingly.
• Program-design alignment: the Guidelines explicitly invite “hub and spoke models” (§5.2), “support to innovate, share and scale best-practice” (§2), partnerships/consortia as the route to coverage (§3.2), and prioritise First Nations partnership delivery (10% pool, §3.1; Criterion 2 “strongly encouraged to demonstrate direct partnership… with First Nations organisations”). Remote Reach is assembled from those exact components.
• Money lands in community-controlled organisations (~40-45% of budget) — the Closing the Gap PR2 story competitors structured as branch-office national rollouts cannot tell.

B.13 Kill risks + mitigations

B.14 First Nations partnership angle (concrete)

• Majority of access points are ACCO-hosted (NPYWC, Congress, Anyinginyi): community-controlled delivery is the model, not an add-on — Closing the Gap PR2 (“building the community-controlled sector”) in budget form (~40-45% of funds to partners).
• First Nations governance group with decision rights, not advisory vibes: majority ACCO-appointed, holds sign-off on cultural adaptation, language priorities, community protocols and in-language releases; budgeted sitting fees; serviced by an identified 0.6 FTE coordinator at DAS.
• Language strategy run with language authorities: NT AIS + SA/WA interpreter services as paid suppliers; community voice talent paid award rates; orthography and recording standards set with language centres; all in-language products pending cultural review before release — no exceptions.
• Data sovereignty (PR4): community-level service data is reported back to each community and its ACCO in usable form; consortium data framework includes Indigenous data governance principles; regional information becomes a community asset, not just a DEX upload.
• Employment: identified roles at DAS (0.6 FTE) and within each ACCO sub-grant (their hires, their people); traineeship pathway shared across the network.
• Cross-border by and for Anangu/Yarnangu families: the NPY footprint is one country split by three bureaucracies; the consortium’s cross-border pathway products are designed around family reality rather than jurisdictional convenience — co-designed with NPYWC’s existing disability arm.
• 10% prioritisation pool (§3.1): the application claims it on the strong form — “delivered through and in partnership with the community-controlled sector,” with the budget table as proof.

Alternates considered (and why they lost)

Alt 1 — “DRI Legacy: Living Accessible Resources” (Cat A, 3-year, ~$200-250k/yr)

Turn the DRI consultation findings and the Leadership Group’s voted priorities (Transport, Built Environment, Health) into a maintained suite of accessible information products (Easy Read/audio/video/first languages) for Central Australia — resources only, no service.

Why it lost: Cat A’s “stand-alone resources” box gives DAS a 3-year project with no recurrent service revenue — useless against the FY28 cliff and weaker against Stream 3’s outcome set, which centres services people can use to find support. Worse, DRI findings are reform-consultation material: products built directly from them drift toward systemic-advocacy outputs (§5.4 exclusion) and would need constant de-advocacy editing. Everything valuable in it survives as Concept A’s Year-1 content seed (the topic packs start from DRI evidence) — at Cat B money.

Alt 2 — National First Nations Disability Information Line (“First Nations Gateway”)

A national phone/online IAR channel for First Nations people with disability, staffed by First Nations information officers, all states.

Why it lost: It is the closest legal shape to the §5.4 Gateway-duplication example — a single national platform/line differentiated only by cohort; an unsympathetic assessor kills it at eligibility. DAS is not an ACCO and has no national First Nations mandate — FPDN or a NACCHO-affiliated body applying for the same shape beats DAS on legitimacy, and DAS competing against them looks wrong and probably is. A national line also reproduces the placeless model the NDIS Review says fails remotely. The defensible core — production in language, trusted local intermediaries — is exactly what Concept B keeps, with ACCOs holding the community-facing layer and decision rights.

Comparison + verdicts

Cat A vs Cat B verdict: Cat B for both — both are ongoing IAR services (front door / access points + maintained knowledge base), which is exactly Cat B’s definition (“phonelines, on-going outreach, or maintaining an online information hub”). Cat A (“stand-alone resources… only focused on developing or updating existing resources”) fits neither concept; it only ever fit Alt 1, which lost on strategy. The pre-made Cat B decision stands verified.

Top 3 risks across the pair:

1. B’s consortium assembly inside 3 weeks — NPYWC’s internal approval cycle is the long pole; start approaches this week or B slips to “named pipeline” partners and loses Criterion 2 weight.
2. Gateway-duplication misreading — managed by building the §5.4 differentiation language directly into Criterion 1 for both applications and banning the words platform/portal/gateway/navigator as self-descriptions.
3. Criterion 2 capability optics — 7-staff org, thin recent ILC delivery evidence in DEX, and (for B) lead-org financial scale; answered with dedicated PM lines, Breakthrough Office finance, staged budgets, and DAS’s lived-experience governance + 15-year delivery record leading the narrative.

Next actions (not in scope of this doc): Scott sign-off on both concepts; partner approaches for B (this week); pull the Gateway evaluation PDF for quotable findings; confirm SA3 codes against ABS ASGS 2021 allocation files; draft Criterion 1-3 text + mandatory templates (Activity Work Plan, Budget, Risk Management Plan) per application; run partner ineligibility screens.

Built 11 Jun 2026. Sources: Guidelines V2 (full read), FAQs v3 (full-text search), DAS FY27 Grants — Verified Facts (Obsidian), DAS Grants Deep Dive Handoff 26 May 2026 (Obsidian), web research as cited in §0.