NDIS SIL explained: Supported Independent Living.
Your worker slept on-site all night but was called up twice — and the claim went out as a flat sleepover allowance. Your shared house has three participants and a 1:2 ratio in the roster of care, but the shift was apportioned evenly across all three. These are the SIL errors that sit quietly in your claims for months. SIL is some of the highest-value, highest-complexity work in the NDIS — and the gap between the roster you deliver and the one the NDIA funded is where most of the money gets lost.
SIL (Supported Independent Living) is NDIS funding that pays support workers to help participants with everyday tasks — personal care, meals, medication, and overnight support. It is aimed at people with high or complex needs, often in shared homes, and is tied to an agreed Roster of Care that sets the hours, staffing ratios, and overnight arrangements the funding is built against.
What SIL is, and who it is for
Supported Independent Living is NDIS funding for the help and supervision a participant needs to live as independently as possible. In practice it pays support workers to assist with the everyday tasks of daily life, such as:
- —Personal care — showering, dressing, grooming
- —Meals — planning, shopping support, cooking
- —Medication prompting and health routines
- —Household tasks — cleaning, laundry, keeping the home safe
- —Building skills and independence over time
- —Overnight support — active assistance or a sleepover, depending on need
SIL is generally for participants with higher or more complex support needs who require significant help to live day to day — frequently with support available overnight or around the clock. It is most often delivered in shared living arrangements, where two or three participants live together and a worker (or workers) supports the household, though it can also be delivered in a person's own home.
One distinction trips people up: SIL funds the support, not the accommodation. Rent, board, and groceries are everyday living costs the participant pays themselves — SIL covers the workers who provide the assistance.
The Roster of Care
SIL is quoted and funded against a Roster of Care (ROC) — the agreed plan of staffing and supports for the participant or the shared household. It is the single most important document in SIL, because the NDIA builds the SIL budget from it.
A roster of care typically sets out:
- —Support hours across each day and the week
- —Worker-to-participant ratios in a shared setting (e.g. 1:1, 1:2, 1:3)
- —Overnight arrangement — active overnight support or a sleepover
- —How shared support is apportioned between participants
Because the funding flows from the roster of care, the roster you actually deliver should mirror it. If the delivered roster drifts from the funded one — more hours, a richer ratio, an active overnight where a sleepover was quoted — you can end up delivering support that isn't funded, or claiming for support that wasn't agreed.
SIL is usually stated, not flexible
Most SIL funding is provided as a stated support. That means it is tied to the specific SIL quote and roster of care, and cannot be freely reallocated to other supports the way flexible Core funding can. The budget is purpose-built from the roster of care for that participant's living arrangement.
The practical consequence: SIL is not a pool you can dip into for unrelated supports. Delivery and claims need to stay aligned with what was quoted. If a participant's needs change, the path is usually a review and a re-quote with the NDIA — not quietly stretching the existing funding to cover something it was never built for.
What makes SIL rostering hard
SIL combines the two things that make rostering complicated — long, continuous coverage and shared staffing — and then layers overnight support on top. Four areas catch providers out repeatedly, and they are exactly where purpose-built NDIS rostering software does its heaviest lifting.
Sleepovers and active overnight
Overnight support comes in two very different forms, and they are paid and claimed differently. Recording the wrong one — or not capturing when a sleepover was interrupted — is one of the most common SIL errors.
| Overnight type | What it means |
|---|---|
| Sleepover | Worker sleeps on-site and is available to respond if needed. Paid a sleepover allowance for the sleep period; if woken to provide active support, that time is paid at the relevant hourly rate. |
| Active overnight | Worker is awake and providing support through the night. Paid as ordinary (or penalty-rated) working hours, not as a sleepover. |
Costing these correctly — sleepover allowances, woken active hours, weekend and public-holiday penalties and broken shifts — is exactly what NDIS payroll software should handle from the roster, so the timesheet that reaches Xero already reflects the SCHADS Award.
Shift handovers
Round-the-clock coverage means workers hand over to one another, often with a short overlap so information passes safely from one shift to the next. Those overlaps are real worked time that has to be rostered, paid, and accounted for — and the coverage has to be genuinely gap-free, because an uncovered window in a 24/7 arrangement is a safety risk, not just a scheduling gap.
Shared-setting staffing
In a shared home, one worker may support two or three participants at once. The ratio set in the roster of care determines how that shared support is funded and how it must be apportioned between participants when you claim. Getting the ratio or the split wrong is easy to do by hand and quietly distorts every participant's budget.
Continuity of support
Participants in SIL often rely on a familiar, consistent team. Continuity matters for quality of support and for safety — but it pulls against the realities of leave, sickness, and an unfilled overnight shift that still has to be covered by someone. Keeping the roster both consistent and complete is a constant balancing act.
SCHADS pay implications
Because SIL involves overnight work, split coverage, and weekend and public holiday shifts, it leans heavily on the parts of the SCHADS Award that are easiest to miscalculate:
- —Sleepover allowance — paid for the sleep period of a sleepover shift, with any active time worked paid separately at the relevant hourly rate
- —Broken shifts — when a worker's day is split across separate periods with an unpaid break over an hour, a broken shift allowance applies
- —Penalty rates — evenings, Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays each attract loadings on top of the base rate
These are exactly the components a general-purpose payroll tool tends to handle poorly. Our SCHADS Award guide goes through each one in detail.
What providers need to get right
SIL rewards discipline in three places. Get these right and the rest tends to follow.
The roster matches the roster of care
The hours, ratios, and overnight arrangements you actually deliver should mirror what the SIL was funded against. When the delivered roster drifts from the funded one, you are either giving away unfunded support or quietly over-claiming — both are problems, just in opposite directions.
Claims match the support delivered
Claim what was actually delivered — against the correct SIL line items and the agreed ratio — not simply what was planned. Where support is shared, the cost has to be apportioned across participants correctly. Claims that trace cleanly back to a delivery record are the ones that stand up at audit.
Sleepover and penalty pay are accurate
Pay the sleepover allowance and any active overnight hours correctly, apply weekend and public holiday penalties, and capture broken shift allowances. Underpaying any of these is a SCHADS breach; overpaying erodes a margin that SIL rarely has much of to spare.
Confirm the current rules before you quote or claim
SIL quoting requirements, support item codes, ratio arrangements, and price limits change over time, and the NDIA's expectations around the roster of care evolve with them. This guide is general information, not advice. Always confirm the current SIL rules, quoting process, and pricing against the NDIA's published guidance and the current NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits before you build a quote or submit a claim.
For NDIS providers using practice management software
Rostrel is built specifically for SIL providers: it tracks your delivered roster against the funded Roster of Care so drift is visible before it becomes a claims problem, automatically apportions shared-setting support costs across participants at the correct ratio, and captures sleepover interruptions and active overnight hours separately so your SCHADS payroll export to Xero is accurate for every shift type. You can see what was rostered, what was delivered, and what was claimed — in one place, without manual reconciliation.
Frequently asked questions
What is NDIS SIL (Supported Independent Living)?
SIL is NDIS funding for help with the everyday tasks of daily life — personal care, meals, medication, cleaning, and building independence skills. It is aimed at participants who need a lot of support, often around the clock, and is frequently delivered in shared living arrangements. SIL pays for the support workers, not for rent, board, or groceries, which remain everyday living costs the participant covers themselves.
Who is SIL funding for?
SIL is generally for participants with higher or more complex support needs who require significant help to live independently, often including overnight or 24/7 support. The NDIA assesses whether SIL is reasonable and necessary based on the person's situation. Participants with lower support needs are usually funded through other supports rather than SIL.
What is a Roster of Care?
A Roster of Care (ROC) is the agreed plan of staffing and supports that SIL is quoted and funded against. It sets out the support hours across the week, the ratio of workers to participants in a shared setting (for example 1:1, 1:2, or 1:3), and the overnight arrangement — whether that is an active overnight shift or a sleepover. The NDIA uses the roster of care to work out the SIL budget.
Is SIL funding flexible?
Usually not. SIL is generally provided as "stated" support — the funding is tied to the specific SIL quote and roster of care, and cannot be freely moved to other supports the way flexible funding can. Because the budget is built from the roster of care, providers need to deliver and claim in line with what was quoted. Always confirm the current arrangement with the NDIA, as plan rules vary.
What do providers need to get right with SIL?
Three things matter most: the delivered roster should match the roster of care the SIL was funded against; claims should reflect the support actually delivered, against the right line items and ratios; and payroll must be accurate, including sleepover allowances, active overnight hours, weekend and public holiday penalties, and broken shifts under the SCHADS Award. Getting any of these wrong risks underpayment, unfunded support, or claims that do not stand up at audit.
What's the difference between SIL and SDA?
SIL and SDA are two different things that often go together. SIL (Supported Independent Living) funds the support — the workers who help you with daily tasks and living skills in your home. SDA (Specialist Disability Accommodation) funds the home itself — purpose-built or modified housing for people with very high needs. A participant can have SIL without SDA (support in a regular rental or the family home), and SDA is only funded for those who meet its separate, stricter eligibility. In short: SDA is the bricks, SIL is the people.
Built for complex SIL rosters
Rostrel handles complex SIL rosters — including sleepovers and shared-setting ratios — ties every claim back to the support actually delivered, and exports SCHADS-correct payroll to Xero. It won't write your roster of care, but it will help you deliver, claim, and pay against it without the gaps.
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