From 1 July 2026, every NDIS SIL provider in Australia is subject to a new set of SIL-specific Practice Standards — introduced alongside mandatory registration as part of the most significant regulatory reform the sector has seen since the NDIS launched.
If you deliver Supported Independent Living, these standards now define what quality looks like in your service, and they form the basis of what an independent auditor will assess. Understanding what they require — and where your current operations may fall short — is the starting point for compliance.
This guide walks through the four domains of the new SIL Practice Standards, what each one requires, and the practical steps providers need to take now.
What Are the New SIL Practice Standards?
The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission developed the new SIL Practice Standards in response to recommendations from three major reviews: the NDIS Review, the Disability Royal Commission, and two Own Motion Inquiries into supported accommodation. All three identified significant gaps in participant safety, tenancy rights, worker capability, and provider accountability in SIL and group home settings.
The new standards are SIL-specific. They sit alongside the existing Core NDIS Practice Standards — not instead of them — and they shift the focus from service delivery processes to measurable participant outcomes. A provider who has historically relied on strong paperwork without demonstrating real change in participants’ lives will find these standards more demanding than what came before.
The standards were pilot-tested with 12 registered SIL providers in February 2026 before finalisation, and they apply to all registered SIL providers from 1 July 2026, including those currently going through the mandatory registration transition.
The Four Domains of the SIL Practice Standards
The new SIL Practice Standards are structured across four domains. Each one targets a specific area where the reviews identified systemic risk to participant safety, rights, and quality of life.
1. Supported Decision-Making
This domain requires SIL providers to demonstrate that participants have genuine choice and control over their day-to-day lives — not just documented consent at the time of signing a service agreement.
What auditors will look for:
- Evidence that participants are actively involved in decisions about their living environment, daily routines, support arrangements, and goals
- Processes for identifying and responding to participants’ communication needs and preferences, including support for people with complex communication requirements
- Documentation showing that decision-making support is provided consistently — not only at onboarding
- Records that reflect the participant’s own voice, not just the provider’s description of what was delivered
The practical implication for providers is that person-centred practice needs to be visible in day-to-day support records, not only in service agreements and support plans. If your progress notes describe tasks completed rather than participant choices made, this domain will require attention.
2. Safeguarding
The safeguarding domain addresses the risks specific to shared living environments — where participants live in close proximity to other people, rely heavily on the workforce for personal care and daily life, and may be less able to identify or report abuse, neglect, or exploitation.
What auditors will look for:
- A functioning incident management system with timely reporting, documented review, and evidence of corrective action
- Policies and processes for identifying, preventing, and responding to abuse, neglect, and exploitation that go beyond a generic document
- Compliance with reportable incident obligations, including timeframes
- Clear processes for responding to behaviours of concern that are rights-based, trauma-informed, and compliant with restrictive practices requirements
- Worker awareness of safeguarding obligations, demonstrated through supervision records, training logs, and staff interview responses
SIL settings carry elevated safeguarding risk by their nature. Providers who have not embedded safeguarding into daily operational practice — rather than treating it as a policy compliance exercise — will face significant remediation work to meet this domain.
3. Practice Governance
This domain focuses on how the provider organisation is managed and whether governance structures actually support safe, consistent service delivery at the front line.
What auditors will look for:
- Clear accountability structures with documented roles, responsibilities, and escalation pathways
- Risk management processes that are active, reviewed, and applied to real operational decisions — not a static register
- Quality improvement systems that use incident data, complaints, participant feedback, and audit findings to drive change
- Financial sustainability evidence sufficient to demonstrate the organisation can maintain service continuity
- Workforce oversight including supervision, performance review, training records, and capability matching between workers and participant support needs
This domain is where smaller SIL providers often face the most significant gaps. Operating a SIL service requires governance maturity that goes well beyond what is needed to deliver lower-intensity supports. If your organisation has grown without a corresponding investment in governance infrastructure, this is the domain that will expose it.
4. Agreements About Tenancy, Housing, and Support Arrangements
This domain directly addresses one of the most consistently identified problems in SIL settings — the conflation of housing and support arrangements in ways that diminish participant rights and choice.
What auditors will look for:
- Clear separation between the participant’s tenancy or housing arrangement and their support agreement — both in documentation and in practice
- Evidence that participants understand their rights as tenants or residents, independent of their support relationship with the provider
- Processes ensuring that a change in support arrangements does not automatically result in a change in housing, and vice versa
- Service agreements that accurately reflect what is being delivered, at what cost, and with what notice provisions
- Evidence that participants were provided with accessible information about their rights and options before signing any agreement
This domain will require many SIL providers to revisit their standard agreements and their onboarding processes. Agreements that bundle housing and support without clearly distinguishing the two — or that fail to reflect a participant’s genuine choice — will not meet the standard.
What the New Standards Mean for Existing Registered SIL Providers
If you are already a registered NDIS provider delivering SIL, the new standards apply to you from 1 July 2026. You are not exempt because you hold existing registration. At your next audit — whether that is a mid-term audit or a renewal — you will be assessed against these four domains in addition to the Core NDIS Practice Standards.
That means the time between now and your next audit is not a grace period. It is preparation time. Providers who use that window to conduct an internal gap analysis, update their documentation, and embed the new requirements into daily practice will be far better placed than those who wait until an audit date is confirmed.
What Newly Registering SIL Providers Need to Demonstrate
If you are going through mandatory registration now, you will need to demonstrate compliance with both the Core NDIS Practice Standards and the new SIL-specific standards as part of your initial certification audit. There is no staged rollout for new entrants — the full standard applies from the point of registration.
The most common gaps for providers entering registration for the first time are:
- Incident registers that exist but lack follow-up documentation and corrective action evidence
- Service agreements that have not been reviewed to clearly separate tenancy and support arrangements
- Governance structures that are informal or undocumented
- Worker screening records that are incomplete or not held centrally
- Staff who are not aware of their organisation’s complaints and incident processes when asked directly
Each of these is fixable with adequate preparation time. None of them are fixable in the week before an audit.
How to Prepare for the New SIL Practice Standards
Start with a gap analysis. Map your current policies, procedures, and operational practices against each of the four domains. Be specific about what evidence you hold today and what is missing.
Review your service agreements. Check every SIL service agreement in use against the tenancy and housing domain requirements. Agreements that bundle housing and support without clear separation need to be updated before they are next signed or renewed.
Test your incident management system. Pull your incident register and check the last ten entries. For each one: Was it reported within the required timeframe? Is there documentation of a review? Is there a recorded outcome or corrective action? If not, the system needs strengthening before an auditor sees it.
Brief your team. Staff interviews are a standard part of a certification audit. Workers need to be able to describe how complaints are made, what the incident reporting process involves, and how supported decision-making is applied in practice. That knowledge comes from regular team discussion, not a one-hour pre-audit briefing.
Engage a consultant if capacity is limited. The gap between where most SIL providers currently sit and where the new standards require them to be is significant. Providers who do not have internal compliance capacity should engage external support now, not when an audit date is confirmed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do the new SIL Practice Standards replace the existing NDIS Practice Standards?
No. The new SIL-specific standards sit alongside the Core NDIS Practice Standards. Providers must meet both. The SIL standards add requirements specific to shared living and in-home support settings that the Core standards do not fully address.
When will I be audited against the new standards?
From 1 July 2026, all SIL audits — initial registration, mid-term, and renewal — will include assessment against the new SIL Practice Standards. If your audit falls after that date, the new standards apply.
What if my service agreements do not yet separate tenancy and support?
This is a common situation and it needs to be addressed before your next audit or before any new agreements are signed. VCCG can review your current agreements and advise on what changes are needed.
Will auditors provide guidance during the audit if they find gaps?
No. An audit is an independent assessment, not a consultancy engagement. Auditors identify conformance and non-conformance — they do not advise on how to fix problems. Remediation happens after the audit, and a non-conformance requires a corrective action plan and evidence of implementation before the audit can close.
Can VCCG help us prepare for the new SIL Practice Standards?
Yes. VCCG works with SIL providers on gap analysis, policy and agreement review, documentation preparation, and mock audits. Contact us to discuss where your organisation is starting from and what preparation support makes sense.
Work with VCCG on SIL Practice Standards Compliance
The new SIL Practice Standards represent a genuine uplift in what is required of providers — not a paperwork exercise. VCCG works with SIL providers across Australia to translate these requirements into operational practice, from gap analysis and policy development through to audit preparation and ongoing compliance.
If you are not certain where your organisation stands against the four domains, a gap analysis is the right starting point.