NDIS Core Supports explained: what your funding actually covers
The short answer
Core Supports is the part of your NDIS budget that pays for everyday help. It has four parts: help with daily life (personal care, housework and shared living), transport, everyday items like continence products, and help getting out into the community. Core Supports is usually the most flexible part of your plan — you can generally move money between those parts as your needs change. Transport is the exception. It is normally paid as a set amount and cannot be moved.
Core Supports is usually the largest budget in an NDIS plan, and the one participants most often use inefficiently — not because they overspend, but because they do not realise how much of it is flexible.
The four Core Supports categories
1. Assistance with Daily Life
The everyday help that makes living at home possible. This is where most Core funding goes:
- Personal care — showering, dressing, grooming, toileting, transfers and medication prompting
- Household tasks — cleaning, laundry, linen and meal preparation, where disability is the reason you cannot do them
- Supported Independent Living (SIL) — rostered support in a shared home
- Short-term accommodation and respite
2. Transport
Funding to get around when disability prevents you using public transport unassisted. Most commonly paid as a recurring allowance into your bank account at one of three levels, set by how much you work, study or take part in the community.
Transport is the least flexible part of Core. Because it is normally paid periodically rather than claimed against, it cannot be moved into other categories.
3. Consumables
Everyday disability-related items:
- Continence products
- Low-cost assistive technology under the relevant threshold
- Nutritional supplements where clinically indicated
- Interpreting and translating
4. Assistance with Social, Economic and Community Participation
Support to take part in life outside the home — a support worker to help you attend a class, join a club, go to the shops, see friends, volunteer or get to an appointment. It covers the worker's time, not the cost of the activity.
Where the flexibility is
Core Supports is deliberately the most flexible budget in the NDIS. In most plans you can move funding between Assistance with Daily Life, Consumables, and Community Participation as your needs shift across the year — without asking the NDIA first.
Two things restrict that:
- Transport, which is generally fixed and paid periodically.
- Stated supports, which appear in some plans and are locked to a specific purpose. If a support is stated, the funding can only be used for that support.
Core and Capacity Building are separate budgets, and funding does not move between them.
Core vs Capacity Building at a glance
| Core Supports | Capacity Building | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Everyday assistance now | Building skills and independence over time |
| Examples | Personal care, household tasks, community access | Therapy, life skills, employment support, support coordination |
| Flexible between sub-categories? | Generally yes | No |
| Main exception | Transport; stated supports | — |
Three practical points
Unspent funding does not roll over. Anything left at the end of a plan is gone. Check your utilisation partway through rather than discovering a large underspend at the review — persistent underspending is often read as evidence that less funding is needed next time.
Rates vary by day and time. The NDIS Pricing Arrangements set different price limits for weekday daytime, weekday evening, Saturday, Sunday and public holiday supports. The same two-hour shift can draw noticeably more from your budget on a Sunday.
Group supports stretch further. A community participation support at a 1:2 or 1:3 ratio draws down your budget more slowly than one-to-one. For participants whose goal is simply to be out more often, that can mean substantially more hours from the same funding.
Using Core Supports with VSG Home Care
Most of what VSG Home Care delivers is funded from Core Supports — personal care, household tasks, community participation and transport. We are registered across twelve groups, so several supports can be combined under one service agreement and one point of contact.
If you are not sure which part of your plan funds what, send a referral or call and we will go through the plan with you before anything is agreed.
Common questions
Usually yes. Core Supports is designed to be flexible, so funding can generally be moved between Assistance with Daily Life, Consumables and Community Participation as your needs change. Transport is the main exception — it is typically paid as a fixed periodic amount and cannot be reallocated. Some plans also carry stated supports, which are locked to a specific purpose.
Core Supports fund everyday assistance with daily life. Capacity Building supports fund things that build your skills and independence over time — therapy, life skills training, employment support and support coordination. Core funding is generally flexible between its sub-categories; Capacity Building funding is not, and must be spent within the sub-category it was allocated to.
No. Unspent NDIS funding does not carry over into the next plan. It is worth reviewing how much of your Core budget you have used partway through a plan, because consistent underspending can be read as evidence that less funding is needed at the next review.
Looking for an NDIS provider?
VSG Home Care is a registered NDIS provider in Craigieburn serving Melbourne's northern suburbs. The first conversation is free and commits you to nothing.