How to Classify Support Workers Under the SCHADS Award

What the SCHADS Award Covers

The Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award 2010 (MA000100), known as the SCHADS Award, sets minimum pay rates, classification levels, allowances, and penalty rates for most employees in the social and community services, home care, disability, and crisis accommodation sectors in Australia. For NDIS support providers specifically, the classification schedule that applies to most support workers delivering disability supports is Schedule B, Social and Community Services (SACS) employees. Getting the right schedule and the right level within it is the foundation every other payroll calculation is built on.

The Classification Test: Duties, Not Titles

The Fair Work Ombudsman is clear that classification is decided by the work actually performed, not by a job title, a position description written years ago, or what the employment contract happens to call the role. The correct approach is to read the classification descriptors in Schedule B against what the support worker genuinely does in a typical fortnight, the complexity of the support provided, how much supervision they work under, and the qualifications or equivalent experience they bring to the role. A worker with the title "support worker" who is actually performing complex behaviour support or medication assistance with limited supervision needs to be paid at the level that reflects that work, regardless of what the letter of offer says.

Schedule B Levels 1 to 8 at a Glance

These descriptions are general orientation only. The full wording of every level and pay point sits in Schedule B of the Award itself and the Fair Work Ombudsman's published pay guide for MA000100, and it's that wording, not a summary table, that should be checked against actual duties before a classification decision is finalised or changed.

Home Care vs SACS: A Common Misclassification Trap

The SCHADS Award doesn't use one classification structure for the whole sector. Home care employees, who typically provide personal care and domestic assistance under aged care style arrangements, are classified under a separate 4-level home care structure, while Social and Community Services employees, the schedule that covers most NDIS disability support workers, sit under the 8-level Schedule B structure described above. Providers who bring on disability support staff and classify them under the home care schedule, either by habit or because a payroll system defaults to it, can end up paying materially less than the correct SACS classification for broadly similar work. Confirming which schedule actually applies to an NDIS support role, before assigning a level within it, is the first check, not an afterthought.

Why Classification Errors Drive Underpayment

Classification sits underneath every other payroll calculation. Base rate, penalty rates for weekend, evening, and public holiday work, sleepover and broken shift allowances, and overtime are all calculated as a percentage or fixed amount on top of the classification level's base rate. Set the classification wrong at hiring and every one of those downstream calculations is wrong too, compounding every pay cycle until someone reviews it. A support worker classified at Level 2 while genuinely performing Level 3 duties for two years generates two years of underpayment exposure across every pay item built on that base rate, which is why the Fair Work Ombudsman consistently names classification, not allowance or penalty rate errors, as the primary driver of underpayment findings in the disability and community services sector.

The 2026 Fair Work Commission Restructure

On 1 June 2026, the Fair Work Commission's Full Bench handed down its decision in the gender-based undervaluation review of the SCHADS Award, [2026] FWCFB 137, finding that the existing classification structure and wage rates had been affected by longstanding gender-based undervaluation of work in the sector. The decision introduces a new integrated classification structure that replaces the current Schedules B, C, E and F, alongside a reset of minimum wage rates and removal of the existing Equal Remuneration Order. The new arrangements start from 1 October 2026 for employees currently covered by Schedule E, Home Care Employees, Disability Care, and from 1 October 2027 for the remaining affected schedules, which includes Schedule B and most NDIS support workers. The Commission has confirmed no existing employee's minimum pay rate will be reduced as a result of the transition, and where a current rate already exceeds the translated rate under the new structure, the higher current rate is retained. Every existing classification decision will still need to be reviewed and correctly translated when the new structure takes effect, which makes now, well before the transition date, the right time to confirm current classifications are accurate rather than carrying an existing error into the new structure.

Running a Classification Review

A useful classification review works from the duties up, not the payroll system down. That means listing what each support worker actually does across a representative roster period, matching that list against the current Schedule B descriptors (or the applicable home care classification, if genuinely relevant), checking any relevant qualification or years of equivalent experience, and documenting the reasoning behind the level assigned. This is worth doing at least annually and immediately whenever a worker's responsibilities change, such as taking on medication administration, a behaviour support plan, or supervision of other staff, rather than waiting for the position description to be rewritten or a complaint to be raised.

Getting SCHADS Classification Right in Payroll

Correct classification only holds up if the payroll system that runs off it is actually configured to reflect it, base rate, penalty rates, sleepover and broken shift allowances, and travel time all need to map correctly to the assigned level in Xero or whichever platform is in use, and that mapping needs to be checked whenever a classification changes or an award update takes effect. This is where a lot of otherwise correct classification decisions quietly break down, the level on paper is right, but the pay item configuration behind it hasn't kept pace.