Reform analysis
The new NDIS SIL Practice Standards: what the four standards mean for your audit
The NDIS Commission has published a draft SIL Practice Standards module — four new standards every SIL provider will be audited against. Here's each one in plain English, the evidence auditors will want, and the two 2026 deadlines that decide whether you can keep delivering SIL.
If you deliver supported independent living, you got an email from the NDIS Commission this week. Attached to it — and now published openly — is a draft SIL Practice Standards module: four new standards that SIL providers will be audited against, layered on top of the existing Core Module.
It lands at the same moment registration becomes mandatory for SIL. So there are really two things happening at once — a new bar for how you deliver, and a hard deadline for whether you can keep delivering at all. This post covers both: the four standards in plain English, and the two 2026 dates that decide the rest.
One caveat up front: this is the officially published draft, released for consultation, with the final version due before 1 July 2026. The four standards and their intent are settled; the specific quality-indicator wording may still be refined. Where we quote the module, treat it as draft.
The two deadlines that actually matter
Before the standards themselves, the dates — because they decide everything else. Mandatory registration for SIL doesn't arrive as a single cut-off. It arrives as two:
1 July 2026 — registration becomes mandatory; you must have commenced an application to keep delivering SIL. 1 October 2026 — the apply-by cliff; if you haven't applied by then, you must stop delivering SIL. Delivering SIL unregistered after the cut-off may breach the NDIS Act — maximum penalty 2 years' imprisonment, 120 penalty units, or both.
The practical read: 1 July is the "have you started" gate, and 1 October is the backstop that stops providers sitting on an intention to apply. The full process — application plus a certification audit — typically runs three to six months, and auditor capacity tightens as the cohort piles in. We break the dates down in detail in the 1 July vs 1 October deadline guide.
The four standards, decoded
Each standard sets an intent, expectation statements for participants, workers and providers, and quality indicators an auditor tests directly. Here's each one — and, more usefully, the evidence an auditor will actually ask to see.
Supported Decision-Making
The principle is blunt: decisions about a participant's home, routines and relationships are made by them, not for them. Workers provide the time, accessible information and consistent support a participant needs to exercise that right — and uphold dignity of risk even when a choice carries one.
- A supported decision-making policy, and worker training records against it
- Accessible-information formats matched to each participant's communication mode
- Records that participant views were sought on whether and how they want support
- Dignity-of-risk decisions documented rather than quietly overridden
Safeguarding
Participants are kept safe from violence, abuse, neglect and harm while still being supported to make choices. The standard leans hard on early identification, de-escalation, trauma-informed practice and positive behaviour support — and, distinctively for shared living, on managing conflict and bullying between the people who share a home.
- A safeguarding policy and procedure
- Worker training in de-escalation, trauma-informed practice and positive behaviour support
- House-level incident management records
- Records of safeguarding approaches reviewed with participants
Practice Governance
A competent, trained workforce has to deliver consistent, evidence-based practice in the home — across workers and across shifts. The provider has to show its workforce systems translate into observable practice, with governance oversight of emergency planning for shared living and genuine consultation before placing a new co-tenant.
- A workforce training and competency framework, plus supervision records
- A documented vision, values and service-delivery approach for the home
- Rehearsed, individualised emergency plans per house
- Co-tenant consultation and matching records
Agreements about tenancy, housing and support
This is the one that catches providers who are both landlord and support provider. The service agreement and the tenancy agreement must be legally separate and not contingent on each other, conflicts of interest must be managed, and the participant's tenancy rights — keys, private space, visitors — must be protected so the home is a place of security, not leverage.
- Separate, signed service and tenancy agreements
- A conflict-of-interest policy made accessible to participants
- Records that the participant understands the two agreements are legally separate
- Service-agreement terms covering co-tenant conflict, vacancies and visitors
What you can do before the final version lands
It's tempting to wait for the final wording. Don't. The four standards and their intent are settled, and the evidence they call for — policies, training records, separated agreements, incident logs — won't change between draft and final. Every one of those takes weeks to stand up properly, so the draft is your head start, not a reason to pause.
- Write the four policies now: supported decision-making, safeguarding, practice governance, conflict of interest.
- Log worker training in de-escalation, trauma-informed practice and positive behaviour support — and keep the records.
- Separate your service and tenancy agreements if you're both landlord and provider. This is the single most common gap.
- Stand up a house-level incident register and use it — auditors can tell the difference between a register that exists and one that's lived in.
The full evidence map per standard is in the SIL Practice Standards breakdown, and the document set an auditor samples is in the Tier 1 audit checklist.
What we do
Checkbase is the compliance system that holds the document-evidence side of all four standards in one place — the policies, worker training records, separated agreements, incident registers, and a timestamped audit log that shows continuous compliance rather than a point-in-time snapshot. When your audit window opens, it assembles into a structured Tier 1 Evidence Pack for the auditor.
From Checkbase
Further reading: the 1 July vs 1 October deadline guide covers the dates and the penalty, and the SIL registration readiness page is the start-here hub for the whole reform.
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