NDIS Commissioner launches an inquiry into seclusion and invites participants and families to contribute. Findings are expected in February 2027

This is general information about what the Commission and the law say. It is not legal advice, and we do not report any individual’s experience.

How to take part

The Commission’s release, dated Friday 9 October, says the Commissioner, Louise Glanville, has launched an inquiry into the use of seclusion in disability support services following reports that current practices may inappropriately limit the freedoms of people with disability. The Commission’s inquiry page sets out who can contribute and how.

Who

Anyone with experience or evidence

NDIS participants, families, carers, advocates, providers, workers, peak bodies, researchers and other interested stakeholders

How

By email

seniorpractioner@ndiscommission.gov.au, spelt exactly as the Commission’s page gives it. The terms of reference also mention focus groups and interviews

When

No closing date published

As at 9 October 2026. Findings and recommendations are expected in February 2027

The page says The NDIS Commissioner invites contributions from NDIS participants, families, carers, advocates, providers, workers, peak bodies, researchers and other interested stakeholders. and that Contributions may include lived experience, observations, evidence, research, examples of practice, or insights into the use, prevention and elimination of seclusion in disability supports. The terms of reference add that the inquiry will take input through submissions, focus groups and interviews. On the address: the page spells it practioner, not practitioner, so copy it as given.

One thing to know before you write. The page says insights may be used in the Commission’s wider work, with any concerns about non-compliance or participant risk escalated through existing regulatory and referral processes. A submission that describes a provider’s conduct can therefore lead to regulatory follow-up, not only to a line in a report.

What counts as seclusion, and what the inquiry will ask

Seclusion has a legal definition. It is one of the five regulated restrictive practices in section 6 of the NDIS (Restrictive Practices and Behaviour Support) Rules 2018:

seclusion, which is the sole confinement of a person with disability in a room or a physical space at any hour of the day or night where voluntary exit is prevented, or not facilitated, or it is implied that voluntary exit is not permitted

Note the last limb: a door does not have to be locked. The release puts it plainly: these practices may limit a person’s freedom of movement by stopping them from leaving a room, area or environment, or by creating circumstances that make them believe they cannot leave. The terms of reference call seclusion among the most significant restrictions that can be imposed on a person with disability, and say that while the law may permit it in limited circumstances, authorisation is only one safeguard.

The release says the inquiry has been initiated in response to complaints, reportable incidents and other regulatory intelligence available to the Commission. and that The Commissioner is concerned that people with disability may be subjected to unlawful or unnecessary deprivation of liberty through the prolonged use of authorised seclusion, and the routine or unauthorised use of seclusion. The terms of reference list five issues:

1. Prevalence and impactHow common deprivation of liberty through seclusion is in NDIS-funded supports, its nature and impact, with particular regard to unauthorised seclusion and the repeated, prolonged or ongoing use of authorised seclusion.
2. Who is most at riskParticipant cohorts at heightened risk, what drives that risk, any disproportionate impacts, and how to strengthen safeguards.
3. What works insteadPractices, service models and reforms that reduce reliance on seclusion, including positive behaviour support, and how to scale them across the NDIS.
4. What people sayThe views of participants, families, guardians, advocates, providers, workers, state and territory authorising bodies and others on reducing and eliminating seclusion.
5. Children and young peopleThe impact of implementing the Disability Royal Commission’s recommendation to prohibit the use of seclusion for children and young people.

The inquiry page says the Commissioner is using her own-initiative powers under the NDIS Act and Reportable Incident Rules. The Incident Management and Reportable Incidents Rules 2018 give that power in section 27: The Commissioner may authorise an inquiry in relation to a series of reportable incidents that have occurred in connection with the provision of supports or services by one or more registered NDIS providers. The same section lets the Commissioner consult, request information from any person, and provide opportunities for people with disability to participate in the inquiry. On the outcome, its wording is permissive: The Commissioner may prepare and publish a report setting out his or her findings in relation to the inquiry.

What the Commission’s own numbers show

The Commission publishes restrictive practice counts every quarter. Its Quarterly Performance Report for April to June 2026 counts participants, not incidents, and only through two channels: a participant is counted where a behaviour support plan containing restrictive practices is lodged with the NDIS Commission or a registered provider has made an unauthorised restrictive practice notification to the NDIS Commission.

From Appendix D of the Commission’s Quarterly Performance Report Q4 2025-26. 16,640 and 2.1% are the report’s national row. The report gives no national row for seclusion in plans and notifications combined, and says a participant may be represented in more than one jurisdiction, so 616 is our addition of the state and territory rows below, not a national count. 234 is the report’s national row for unauthorised seclusion.

Count of NDIS participants associated with seclusion notifications in the quarter. “Plan or notification”: the report’s regulated restrictive practice types table (a lodged behaviour support plan containing restrictive practices, or an unauthorised restrictive practice notification by a registered provider). “Unauthorised”: its unauthorised restrictive practice types table. Both from Appendix D of the Commission’s Quarterly Performance Report Q4 2025-26. Ordered largest first by the first figure column.

Three things stand out. In the table of plans and notifications combined, seclusion is the least common of the five regulated practices in every jurisdiction’s rows for the quarter, and the national unauthorised row puts it at 234 participants, against 3,034 for environmental restraint and 2,757 for chemical restraint. The national unauthorised seclusion count has moved little across the six quarters the report shows: 230, 220, 222, 213, 206 and then 234, from January to March 2025 through April to June 2026. And the counts are of participants, not of how often or for how long a person was secluded, which is exactly what the inquiry’s first issue asks about.

The report carries one caveat for the quarter. A note on its chart of the same counts says the Commission temporarily adjusted how it counts participants associated with restrictive practices, because of a data quality issue with participant verification, until that issue is resolved.

The children question

The inquiry’s fifth issue reaches back to the Disability Royal Commission. Its final report (September 2023) said In all settings, the seclusion of children should be prohibited. Recommendation 6.36 asks state and territory governments to provide that the use of seclusion on children and young people is not permitted in disability service settings, immediately. The recommendation is addressed to state and territory governments, so the answer sits with eight of them.

• September 2023Royal Commission final report: recommendation 6.36, addressed to state and territory governments
• 2024Victoria updates its Senior Practitioner Direction to prohibit seclusion of people under 18, according to its progress report entry
• 27 November 2025Governments’ Disability Royal Commission Progress Report 2025 published
• 9 October 2026NDIS Commissioner launches the Own Motion Inquiry
• February 2027Findings and recommendations expected

Dates as the sources give them: the final report’s cover (September 2023), Victoria’s entry on recommendation 6.36 (2024, no day or month given), the progress report pages’ last-updated date, the Commission’s release and its expected date for findings.

Here is what each government’s entry on recommendation 6.36 says in the Progress Report 2025, last updated 27 November 2025:

From the Progress Report 2025 page for recommendation 6.36, read 9 October 2026. Quoted words are the entry’s own; the rest is our summary. The report was the latest on the government’s implementation page when we read it. We have not checked each jurisdiction’s law since November 2025, so a state may have acted since.

Of the eight entries, Victoria’s is the only one that says seclusion of under-18s is now prohibited in disability services. Its entry says Victoria has completed the first component of this recommendation. The government’s implementation page says all governments have agreed to annual reporting to the Disability Reform Ministerial Council, and the community, on the implementation of recommendations, so a 2026 update would be the next public check.

Our view

This is opinion, built on the documents above. An inquiry that asks people who have been secluded to say what happened is the right instrument, and the terms of reference ask the right questions, especially about repeated and prolonged authorised seclusion. Authorisation tells you a process was followed. It does not tell you how long someone spent in a room.

The Commission’s numbers are a floor, and the inquiry should say so. They count participants in plans lodged with the Commission and in notifications made by registered providers. The Commission’s own first priority for 2026-27, on its priorities page, is NDIS providers who are implementing regulated restrictive practices and are not registered to do so. Unauthorised seclusion by those providers would not reach these tables through a registered provider’s notification. That is a reason the submissions from participants and families matter more here than in most consultations.

The children question needs the same honesty. The terms of reference ask about the impact of implementing the Royal Commission’s recommendation; on the governments’ own report, one jurisdiction says it has done it for disability services, and the Commission’s quarterly report does not split restrictive practices by age. A finding that says plainly where the prohibition exists and where it does not would be worth more than a finding about its impact.

Last, the report itself. Section 27 says the Commissioner may publish one. The Commission has said only that findings and recommendations are expected in February 2027. People are being asked to share experiences of being confined. The findings should be published in full, and we will read them when they are.

What we could and could not check

We read the Commission’s 9 October release, its inquiry page and the terms of reference in full; section 6 of the Restrictive Practices and Behaviour Support Rules and section 27 of the Incident Management and Reportable Incidents Rules on the Federal Register; Appendix D and the restrictive practice notes of the Quarterly Performance Report Q4 2025-26; recommendation 6.36 in the Royal Commission’s final report; and the Progress Report 2025 pages for volume 6 and recommendation 6.36. We did not ask the Commission about a closing date, the email address, or whether the report will be published. We did not read any state or territory law or direction directly. We make no claim about any provider.

For how the Commission’s enforcement tools work, see the Commission’s five enforcement tools; for its 2026-27 priorities, see our report on them.