The council is working with others in the region and health services to prepare for reforms and the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

The scheme is due to start in the Wimmera in October 2017.

As part of the scheme, home and community care program management will be split. The federal government will fund people 65 and above, and the state governments will fund people less than 65.

The council project will identify a preferred governance model and review home and community care services in the area, plus what the reforms will mean for these services.

Cr Tony Phelan said he was concerned about new funding models and the effect these would have on Wimmera service providers.

“My concern is that all the block funding that goes to various agencies to support people with disabilities will be taken off them and given to the individuals to use as they like to gain services from providers in a market situation,” he said.

“Wimmera Uniting Care for example – instead of getting the millions of dollars they would normally get – will get nothing, and they’d hope to get that money back when people actually use their service.

“What worries me is that age-old problem we have in this area of numbers.

“If you have an external agency coming in and providing a service and people think ‘I’ll use that because it’s cheaper’, then the numbers don’t stack up for your local providers, and those services could just drop away.”

Council chief executive Peter Brown said the changes posed some risks for the region.

“Certainly with the aged care element funded by the Commonwealth, we have seen already they have big providers for big geographical areas,” he said.

“If we have a service that is fed out on a statewide basis, it would be very hard to have a competitive bid from the Wimmera.

“This work is really important for the Wimmera region to collaborate and come up with a response to the changes.”

Cr Mark Radford said the most important aspect was ensuring the community’s most vulnerable residents were looked after.

“We want to get this right. It’s great to see us working together as a region,” he said.

Cr Pam Clarke said the region was facing difficult changes.

“There’s going to be that gap of people under 65 who’ve had flexibility to be swapped in where they maybe don’t fit properly, but they need the services,” she said.

“Under this program, it will be black and white – there will be no flexibility. There will be no being able to move around support for someone or help them out in the short term.

“It also becomes a very competitive market, and the fact is some of these profit-making services pay their staff pittance – they do not comply with any awards, they do not pay for any travel.

“And then the people who are the most vulnerable are the ones who suffer, because they are not getting appropriate services.

“There’s some real issues for rural areas.”