Improved Daily Living is the part of an NDIS plan that pays for learning to do things, rather than for having them done for you. It sits in the Capacity Building budget, and it is the category most often left unspent — usually because nobody has explained what it is actually for.
This guide covers what the category funds, how it differs from the Core support that sounds almost identical, what counts as a real example, and how to get it into a plan at the next review.
What is Improved Daily Living in the NDIS?
Improved Daily Living is a Capacity Building support category that funds training, therapy and skill development to help a participant do more for themselves over time. In the NDIS price guide it appears under Capacity Building as CB Daily Activity, and on a plan it is usually written simply as “Improved Daily Living”.
The word that matters is capacity. Every Capacity Building category exists to change what somebody can do, not to get a task finished today. A support worker who cooks dinner has solved tonight. A program that teaches somebody to cook has changed every night after it.
That distinction is also the test the NDIA applies. If a support is building a skill, teaching a method, or training the people around a participant, it generally belongs in Capacity Building. If it is doing the task on the participant’s behalf, it generally belongs in Core.
What can Improved Daily Living funding pay for?
Improved Daily Living typically funds therapy and skill development aimed at everyday independence — including occupational therapy, speech pathology, dietetics, training for family and carers, and individual or group programs that teach daily living skills.
Common examples include:
- Therapy aimed at everyday tasks — occupational therapy for dressing, cooking or managing a household; speech pathology for communication used in daily life
- Daily living and life skills programs — structured teaching of cooking, shopping, budgeting, laundry, personal routines and kitchen safety, one-to-one or in a small group
- Training for the people around the participant — showing a parent, partner or support worker how to support a skill rather than do it for them
- Assessments and reports that work out what skills to build and in what order
- Early childhood supports for younger participants, where the goal is developmental rather than maintenance
Our guide to improved daily living skills examples has a far longer list, grouped by area of life, and Capacity Building supports covers the other eight categories this one sits alongside.
What it does not fund is ongoing help with the task itself. Weekly assistance to clean the house is not Improved Daily Living, however much it helps. Teaching somebody a cleaning routine they can keep using is.
How is Improved Daily Living different from Assistance with Daily Life?
Assistance with Daily Life is a Core support that pays for someone to help with or carry out everyday tasks. Improved Daily Living is a Capacity Building support that pays for building the skill to do those tasks independently. The names are close enough to confuse almost everybody, and they come out of different budgets.
| Assistance with Daily Life | Improved Daily Living | |
|---|---|---|
| Budget | Core | Capacity Building |
| Purpose | Getting the task done | Building the skill |
| Typical support | A support worker helps you cook dinner | A program teaches you to cook |
| Measured by | Hours of support delivered | Progress against a goal |
| Budget flexibility | Usually flexible across Core categories | Generally fixed to this category |
A participant can have both, and many do. The two are not alternatives — one keeps life running now, the other reduces how much of it is needed later.
Is Improved Daily Living funding flexible?
Generally no. Core budgets can usually be moved between most Core categories, but Capacity Building budgets are normally tied to the category they were funded in, which means Improved Daily Living money cannot simply be spent on something sitting in another part of the plan.
This has a practical consequence worth knowing. If Improved Daily Living funding is not used, it is not quietly available for something else — it sits there, and at the next review the NDIA can reasonably conclude it was not needed. Unspent funding in this category is one of the most common reasons a plan comes back smaller.
Where is Improved Daily Living shown in a plan?
Look for the Capacity Building section of the plan, then for a heading that reads “Improved Daily Living” or “Improved Daily Living Skills”. Plan managers and portals sometimes show it as CB Daily Activity, which is the price guide’s name for the same thing.
The item numbers underneath it change when the price guide is updated, usually each July, so there is little point memorising them. If you are plan managed or agency managed, your provider handles the codes. If you are self managed, the current price guide at ndis.gov.au always has the live list.
Can Improved Daily Living pay for a group program?
Yes, where the group exists to teach a skill rather than simply to fill time. A structured program with a curriculum, a goal it is working towards and a record of progress can generally be claimed against Improved Daily Living; a purely social outing usually belongs under a Core community participation support instead.
The practical difference an NDIA planner is looking for is whether anything is being taught. A group that goes to the cinema each week is participation. A group that works through a ten-week cooking course, where each session builds on the last and somebody can do at the end what they could not do at the start, is capacity building.
Groups also tend to be better value than one-to-one for skill work, because the hourly rate is shared — which means a given budget stretches to considerably more sessions. Our guide to NDIS funded activities covers what group sessions cost and how to find one.
Which category a particular program should be claimed under depends on how that provider is registered and what the participant’s goals say, so it is always worth asking the provider directly rather than assuming. Any provider worth joining will tell you plainly, and will say so if your funding does not fit.
How do you get Improved Daily Living into a plan?
Improved Daily Living funding follows goals. The NDIA funds supports that are reasonable and necessary for pursuing a goal written in the plan, so the surest route is to have a goal about independence in daily life, and then ask for the supports that pursue it.
Three things make that conversation go better:
- Write the goal around independence, not the activity. “I want to learn to cook” is an activity. “I want to prepare my own meals so I can live more independently” is a goal, and the cooking program becomes the way of pursuing it.
- Bring evidence of the gap. An occupational therapy report, a letter from a support coordinator, or a simple account of what is currently difficult carries more weight than a request on its own.
- Name what you want to do and roughly what it costs. Planners work with numbers. Arriving with a specific program, its length and its price is far more persuasive than asking for a category in the abstract.
If a plan is already in place and has no Improved Daily Living funding, the options are to wait for the scheduled reassessment, or to request an early plan reassessment if circumstances have changed materially.
What if the funding is already there and unspent?
If Improved Daily Living funding is sitting unused, it can usually be spent on any support that genuinely fits the category — there is no need to wait for a review, and no need to go back to the NDIA for permission. The only requirement is that the support is consistent with the plan’s goals.
This is the situation most participants are actually in. In our experience, the majority of people who join a skill-building program discover the funding has been in their plan for months. Nobody had told them what the category was for, so nobody had used it.
If you are not sure what is left, your plan manager can tell you in a minute, or you can see it in the myplace participant portal.
Where to check and who to ask
The official source is the NDIS itself — the guide to your management options pages and the current pricing arrangements document. Beyond that, the people who can answer fastest are your plan manager, who sees the budget, and your support coordinator, who knows what is available locally.
And if you want a straight answer about whether a particular program fits your funding, ask the provider before you commit to anything. A good one will check your plan with you and tell you if the answer is no.