Twenty years ago, the Clarke family took their son Ryan along to his first day of work.
“We were probably more nervous than him,” Ryan’s dad, Gerry Clarke, said.
“Ryan adapts well to most things. He loved it since day one.”
Ryan, who lives with Down Syndrome, has worked in packaging at South Australian disability employment provider Bedford ever since.
The 39-year-old said he has met his best friend and girlfriend at Bedford and enjoyed going every day.
But now, the job he loves — along with those of many other South Australians living with disability — is at risk, following the news that Bedford is set to enter administration.
That thought has been something Mr Clarke “can’t even comprehend”.
“It’s just such an important part of his [Ryan’s] life and the life of 1,400 supported employees,” he said.
Disability employment provider hopes for lifeline
Mr Clarke described Ryan as a “loyal worker” who attended Bedford four days a week.
“It’s more than a workplace, it’s like a family. They care for each other. They support each other … it’s a unique environment.”
Mr Clarke said Bedford had helped Ryan in numerous ways over the decades.
“Ryan’s growth, his learning and development, his maturity, the social skills he’s developed [at Bedford] … is just amazing,” he said.
Outside of work, Ryan is the “best uncle” and a “very special” member of his family as one of six children, his dad says. (Supplied)
Mr Clarke said while he was in “shock and disbelief” at the news that Bedford may go into voluntary administration, he hoped the organisation, state, and federal governments would “find a way” to ensure its services were not lost.
“We’re hopeful a solution will be found,” he said.
Over in Port Lincoln, Bronwyn Warland feels the same, saying she was also “really shocked” at the news, but “hopeful for a positive outcome”.
Her son, Lakota, attends Bedford twice a week, going grocery shopping and cooking meals for others.
“He loves it there, he views it as his work,” she said.
“He is non-verbal, so he uses sign language and he signs every morning that he’s off to work, and he’s so proud to be going to work like his mum and dad and sister.”
Lakota attends Bedford twice a week, going grocery shopping and cooking meals for others. (Supplied: Bronwyn Warland)
She said attending Bedford had benefits for both Lakota and the wider family.
“For him, it’s given him a purpose. When he was at school, he got up and went to school every day. When that finished, it was sort of an unknown and then Bedford was available,” she said.
She said if Bedford’s services were to end, it would be “catastrophic for the whole of South Australia”.
“There’s so many families that would be affected,” she said.
“The clients themselves, that’s their outlet, their social gathering. It would mean that they would be very isolated, they would be staying at home more.”
Bronwyn Warland says if her son couldn’t access Bedford’s programs, she would not be able to work. (ABC News: Brooke Neindorf)
She said the effects would be more strongly felt in regional areas like Port Lincoln.
“There isn’t very many options in our rural areas … Bedford’s been around in Port Lincoln for years and years, and provided an amazing service for our disability community,” she said.
Ms Warland said Lakota enjoyed the opportunity to “get out and about” in the community through Bedford, and had developed a “lot of camaraderie” with a “really good bunch of people”.
“In the morning, he has his work bag, he hops into the back of the car and I’m driving him and he taps me on the shoulder about 20 times on the way and signs, ‘work, work work’ with a big smile on his face,” she said.
“He’s really excited to be going to work.
What is Bedford?
Bedford offers supported employment opportunities in areas ranging from hospitality, gardening, laundry and manufacturing, with a workforce understood to be numbering 1,650, including those it supports as well as other employees.
Its website states it has grown to become the second-largest employer of people with disability in Australia, and the largest in South Australia, with 22 locations, and it has operated for 80 years.
In addition to supported employment, Bedford also has a residential service accommodating about 50 people living with disability.
Bedford is a major disability employment provider in SA. (ABC News: Olivia Mason)
Sky Harvey has worked in packaging at Bedford for nearly nine years and said she had made “heaps of great mates” through her work.
She had hoped to make it to a decade of working at Bedford, but was now uncertain about the future.
“Bedford is quite important to me. I nearly made up to nine years and I wanted to make my 10, but I don’t know if I can quite make it there yet or not,” she said.
Why are they at risk of entering administration?
Bedford had issued a statement on Thursday evening saying that it expected to enter voluntary administration on Sunday; however, on Friday — following a crisis meeting with the state government — its board chair said it was hopeful of a “pathway forward” whilst acknowledging there was “a lot of work to be done” over the weekend.
The chair, Janet Miller, said there were a “few things at play” that had led to Bedford experiencing a “cashflow problem”.
“There is the sustainability of the NDIS model for supported employment, there is the strategy we’ve embarked upon to transition those supported employees into open employment, and those businesses not getting the traction within the time we expected they would,” she said.
Janet Miller and Peter Malinauskas say discussions will continue over the weekend. (ABC News: Tim Morris)
Federal Health and NDIS Minister Mark Butler said Beford was one of “thousands of organisations providing NDIS services”, and he “can’t think of another organisation that has got itself into the position that Bedford management has”.
“I think it’s quite clear that Bedford has tried a number of frankly quite different ways to diversify its financial base and that hasn’t worked for them,” he said.
Ms Miller said Bedford had created three social enterprises to transition people into open employment, rather than supported employment, following recommendations made by the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.
Ms Miller said setting up the social enterprises required a “significant investment in working capital” and because “the return hasn’t been there as quickly as we had hoped, that’s impacted the working capital that’s been available to provide support to those businesses”.
Bedford is midway through a five-year strategic plan that includes a $50 million advanced manufacturing and retail hub due to open this year in Salisbury. (ABC News: Will Hunter)
What happens if Bedford collapses?
Mark Butler said he was “deeply, deeply worried” for the South Australians living with a disability “for whom Bedford is a lifeline.”
“Most other jurisdictions have a number of different supported employment providers, so if one got into difficulty, it would be relatively easy to see people transferred to other providers.
“Bedford is so big in South Australia … that if it does go under, some of the NDIS services will be relatively straightforward to redeploy to other providers, but the supported employment opportunities will be very difficult to transition because of the sheer scale of it.”
Disability employment provider loses government funding
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas echoed Mr Butler’s concerns, saying Bedford’s role in South Australia was “unique in comparison to its counterparts in other jurisdictions”.
“Bedford is a major employer of people in supported wages in South Australia, whereas in other jurisdictions, particularly on the eastern coast, we see more than one player within the market,” he said.
“That is not true here in South Australia.
“There are a couple of large players rather than a whole suite of different players, so it isn’t easy to see a situation where Bedford goes into liquidation and all of a sudden those people get picked up overnight in other opportunities — that’s an unlikely sequence of events.”
Mental Health Coalition of South Australia board president and Skylight Mental Health CEO Paul Creedon said those Bedford employed could lose their “strong networks and friendships”, as well as a loss of independence and “sense of autonomy” if their jobs were to go.
“Employment is a significant thing that gives them some sense of self, some sense of identity, that is taken away too easily when this sort of thing happens,” he said.
Mr Creedon said a closure would also directly affect families and carers who may lose a source of respite.
“If your son or daughter, brother or sister is now in their 30s, 40s or 50s and employed at Bedford and all of a sudden they’re no longer employed at Bedford and [don’t] get the services that are associated with that … those parents who are in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and all of a sudden they’re having to care for someone.”
Janet Miller said she was “very concerned” about the impact the current uncertainty was having on the people Bedford supports.
Janet Miller say she’s “very concerned” about the uncertainty. (Supplied: Bedford Group)
What happens next?
Discussions will continue over the weekend between state and federal governments, Bedford, its bank, and potential administrator McGrathNicol.
Peter Malinauskas said the state government was “able to put some financial support on the table to see if we can’t buy some time” ahead of the board’s deliberations regarding administration on Sunday, but also said he did not “want to just sign a blank cheque”.
“We want to invest, we want to support, we want to contribute to the cause of Bedford’s ongoing operations, but we have to make sure it’s with a clear focus of a sustainable future,” he said.
“Now, if that can’t be achieved, then we have to find an alternative option and that is to support those workers in the event that administration is entered into, which is ultimately a decision exclusively for the board of Bedford.”
Mark Butler says the government understands the “importance of this organisation to our state”. (ABC News: Callum Flinn)
On a federal level, Mark Butler said it was “not the position of government to hand taxpayer funds” to the management of an organisation that had “got their organisation into this level of financial strife”.
But he said the state government had held a “productive meeting” with Bedford that, if all went well, would “buy us some time” and “arrest the immediate crisis”.
“To ensure that those South Australians can turn up to work on Monday, most importantly, but also buy us some time to get to the bottom of what has happened here and to work out whether there is a way to get this South Australian icon back on track.”