The three budgets
An NDIS plan divides funding into three budgets: Core supports, Capacity Building supports, and Capital supports. Almost everything confusing about NDIS funding becomes clearer once you know which budget a support comes from.
Core supports pay for the assistance a participant needs with everyday life: personal care, help with household tasks, community participation, transport, and Supported Independent Living. High-intensity supports — tracheostomy management, PEG/NG feeding, complex bowel care, severe dysphagia, catheter care, complex wounds and subcutaneous injections — are funded from Core, because they are part of daily personal activities.
Capacity Building supports pay for building skills and independence: daily living and life skills, support to find and keep work, support through life transitions, and allied health where it is funded. Capacity Building is about the person needing less support in future, not about getting through today.
Capital supports pay for things rather than services: assistive technology, equipment, home modifications, and Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA).
A note on this guide: PowerCare delivers supports funded from the Core budget, plus community nursing. It does not provide SDA or housing, plan management, support coordination or allied health — those are described here only to explain how funding works, not as services PowerCare offers.
Flexibility, and where it stops
Core supports are generally flexible: within the Core budget, funding can usually be moved between categories as needs change — for example, using some Core funding for community access rather than in-home support. Transport funding is often an exception and may be stated separately.
Capacity Building supports are generally not flexible in the same way. Funding allocated to one Capacity Building category usually has to be used for that category.
Capital supports are the least flexible. Funding for a specific piece of equipment or a specific housing arrangement is for that thing.
Stated supports
Some supports are “stated” in a plan, meaning the funding must be used for exactly that support and cannot be reallocated. Stated supports are common where a support has been specifically assessed and quoted — SIL is often stated this way.
How the money is managed
There are three ways an NDIS plan can be managed, and it affects which providers a participant can use.
Agency-managed (NDIA-managed): the NDIA pays providers directly. Participants can only use NDIS-registered providers.
Plan-managed: a plan manager pays the invoices. Participants can use registered and unregistered providers.
Self-managed: the participant manages the funding and pays providers themselves, with the widest choice of providers and the most administration.
A plan can use more than one of these for different parts of the funding.
PowerCare is not a plan manager. Plan management is a separate NDIS registration that PowerCare does not hold.
Why registration groups matter
Every NDIS support sits inside a registration group, and a registered provider can only deliver the groups it is registered and audited for. This is not a formality. A provider without registration group 104 and Practice Standards Module 1 cannot legally deliver tracheostomy support, no matter how willing they are.
When you call a provider, ask which registration groups they hold. A provider that cannot answer that question quickly is telling you something.