Roster of care

What is a roster of care?

A roster of care (RoC) is a breakdown of a typical week of support in a Supported Independent Living (SIL) home: which staff are on, at what ratio, across which residents, in half-hour blocks, including sleepovers, active nights and any 1:1 time. Under current NDIA guidance a roster of care is optional. It is a tool for the participant and provider to agree the weekly supports, and it can be used as evidence when the NDIA decides SIL funding.

The NDIA's Guide to providing SIL says plainly: "A roster of care isn't a requirement and you don't need to submit it to us." The NDIA publishes a Provider SIL roster of care tool (an Excel spreadsheet) and a guide to using it; the June 2026 guide stresses that the roster "is not the exact schedule of supports that will be provided to the person, nor an agreement with the NDIA."

The term confuses people because it sounds like a staff roster. It isn't. A staff roster names workers and shifts; a roster of care describes the support need — how many workers the house needs at each point in the week and how those hours are shared across residents.

How a roster of care works

The NDIA tool, and the free SIL roster of care tool on this site, follow the same logic:

Splitting shared hours

SIL is usually shared, so the key calculation is dividing staff time across the residents it supports. The rule of thumb is:

Hours per resident = (number of staff × shift length) ÷ number of residents sharing

For example, two staff supporting three residents for an 8-hour shift is 16 staff hours, or about 5.33 hours each. One-to-one support is charged to that resident alone. Handover time should also be divided by the number of residents at the relevant support ratio. The NDIA tool adds up the staff in the house for each half hour; a total that isn't a whole number (such as 1.1 staff) is flagged, and is usually a sign a resident was missed or a ratio entered wrongly.

Overnight support

For each night the roster records one of three options, with sleep start and end times:

The SIL operational guideline says that if awake support regularly runs past two hours a night, the participant should talk to the NDIA about active overnight support instead of a sleepover.

Who uses a roster of care and when

A roster of care is built by the SIL provider with the participant: the June 2026 guide says providers must consult the participant, or their nominee, to compile it. It reaches the NDIA through the participant — if they want planning discussions to consider it, they give it to their support coordinator to include in a home and living supports request or plan reassessment.

A roster is only as good as the evidence under it. Build each resident's half-hour blocks from things you can point to:

• functional assessments and allied health reports, such as occupational therapy, speech pathology and psychology;
• the behaviour support plan, if there is one;
• mealtime management, continence, manual handling and medication plans;
• recent progress notes and incident history showing when support is actually needed;
• the participant's own account of their routine and goals.

The SIL guideline says the NDIA uses "all available information, like your roster of care if you have one, assessments and reports" to work out SIL funding. It also notes a participant will usually only need to give one roster of care: if needs stay the same, the same support generally continues in the next plan.

After the plan is approved, the roster is a starting point, not the service. Since 1 July 2026 regular SIL is claimed either weekly or hourly, not both, and the weekly option depends on a typical schedule of supports agreed in the service agreement (How to claim SIL supports). Revisit the roster when a resident's needs change, someone moves in or out, or a day program starts or stops.

Roster of care vs staff roster and service agreement

Four documents describe SIL from different angles, and mixing them up causes most roster problems. The roster of care describes need; the staff roster fills that need with named workers; the service agreement records what the participant and provider have agreed and how it will be claimed; and the plan sets the funding.

Common reasons rosters of care are queried

A roster that holds up is built from evidence of need, not from the shifts a provider already runs. These are the problems that most often make a roster hard to rely on:

• Built from staffing, not need. Ratios that mirror existing shifts won't line up with assessments.
• Missing residents. Every resident must be listed, including people who aren't NDIS participants (entered as "Non-NDIS A", "Non-NDIS B"), or everyone else's share is inflated.
• 1:1 time without evidence. Individual support needs a documented reason, such as a behaviour support plan, a risk assessment or a clinical need.
• Double-counted time. Only one support can be claimed for any period. Hours at a day program, work or funded community participation are marked as such ("CP", "ADE"), not as SIL.
• Handovers not split. Handover time added in full to one resident instead of divided across the house.
• Irregular support with no rationale. The guide asks for a reason, such as days at home over the last 6 to 12 months; see irregular SIL supports.
• Weekly hours that break the tool's limits. The NDIA guide caps weekday daytime (6am–8pm) at 70 hours a week, weekday evening at 20, Saturday and Sunday at 24 each, and seven sleepovers a week.
• Prepared without the participant. Record when and how you consulted them or their nominee.