KB Type: Concept
Domain Area: Planning
Confidence: Provisional — requires Andrew's research to verify
Depth Hint: Standard
Version: 1.0 — 2026-04-23
Status: Provisional

Provisional article — seeded from NbLM. Requires Andrew's research to verify.

In the NDIS, a participant's Goals and Aspirations represent their personal voice, current life context, and what they want to achieve — functioning as the foundational architectural blueprint for their funding. Under the scheme's operating logic (the NDIS Trinity), every dollar of funding is tied to a clear chain: a participant states a goal in plain English, the NDIA assigns a Support Category to fund the required assistance, and this maps directly to one of the eight NDIS Outcome Domains. The NDIA cannot legally fund any support unless it directly assists the participant in pursuing a documented goal. Therefore, goals must address functional impairment barriers and clearly translate into actionable, measurable outcomes.

Section 33(1) and 33(2) of the NDIS Act 2013 dictate that an NDIS plan must comprise a participant's statement of goals and aspirations. Crucially, this statement is legally "prepared by the participant" (or with a coordinator's facilitation) and must specify their goals, objectives, aspirations, and environmental/personal context. The NDIA cannot dictate, alter, or reject the goals a participant chooses to include.

This is the participant's voice in the plan — it must be captured in their own words, avoiding clinical jargon or professional language.

Section 34(1)(a) establishes the "golden rule" for Reasonable and Necessary funding — explicitly prevents the NDIA from funding any support unless it directly assists the participant to pursue the goals, objectives and aspirations included in the Participant Statement.

This creates a direct accountability chain:

Effective Participant Statements distinguish between:

Short-Term Goals (next 12 months): Specific, measurable goals achievable within the current plan period. These directly inform the current plan's funding allocations.

Medium to Long-Term Aspirations (2-5 years): Broader life goals that provide context and direction. These may not be fully fundable in the current plan but establish the participant's longer-term vision.

Goals must bridge the gap between plain English and the technical NDIS framework. Each goal should be mapped to:

Specific Impairment Barriers: How does the participant's disability create barriers to achieving this goal?

Measurable Outcomes: What does success look like? How will progress be measured?

NDIS Outcome Domains: Which of the 8 domains does this goal map to?

PACE Support Categories: Which of the 21 categories provides the appropriate funding?

The Participant Statement Toolkit dedicates Block 3 specifically to capturing Goals, Objectives, and Aspirations. Core requirements include:

Participant's Own Words: Goals must be recorded in the participant's language, not clinical terminology.

Bridge to Technical Framework: The toolkit forces coordinators to map each goal to impairment barriers, measurable outcomes, and NDIS Outcome Domains.

Translation Matrix: The toolkit's internal Translation Matrix aligns goals with specific PACE Support Categories and item codes, doing the NDIA planner's mapping work for them.

RS-11 (T5) documents a significant legislative change introduced by the NDIS Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Act 2024 that directly affects how goals function in NDIS planning.

Under Old Framework Plans (Legacy and Pace plans): Section 33(1)(a) of the original NDIS Act 2013 required that every plan include a "statement of participant goals and aspirations" as a formal plan component. Goals were the architectural starting point — the NDIA determined what supports were reasonable and necessary to pursue the stated goals. A well-articulated goals statement could independently generate a strong funding argument.

Under New Framework Plans (2024 Amendment Act): Section 32D(1) of the amended Act still requires a statement from the participant specifying their goals, objectives, aspirations, and environmental and personal context. The statement is not eliminated. But its functional role changes fundamentally:

The organising concept shifts from goals to assessed needs. A Needs Assessor produces a formal Needs Assessment Report as the primary evidentiary document for plan decisions. Goals now function as a contextual input that informs how the Needs Assessor interprets the participant's disability-related functional limitations — not as the formal starting point that independently generates support entitlements.

For participants: The old practice of crafting a goals statement to compel specific funding no longer carries the same legislative force. Goals remain relevant, but they must now be framed to speak to the needs assessment criteria: what functional limitation does the participant's disability create in relation to this goal?

For practitioners: Effective participant statement preparation under New Framework Plans requires translating goals into functional impairment language — helping participants articulate not just what they want to achieve, but what their disability prevents them from achieving without support. This is a more complex framing task, but the underlying information is the same.

See topics/new-framework-plans-needs-based-planning for the full legislative architecture.

Section 49(2) of the NDIS Act requires the NDIA to facilitate a new plan during plan reassessments. If the NDIA simply rolls over old goals and ignores new goals provided by the participant, they are likely non-compliant with the Act, providing grounds for a Section 100 internal review.

This makes the Goals and Aspirations section critically important during plan reassessments — participants must explicitly state any new or changed goals.