Comcare issued an improvement notice to the agency charged with monitoring the safety of National Disability Insurance Scheme recipients on April 21.

The notice would mean the commission must act to rectify safety issues identified, understood to be caused by understaffing and intense workloads, but the agency has requested an internal review of the notice.

A Comcare spokesperson confirmed the notice had been issued.

"The notice is currently under internal review at the request of the commission. This is an ongoing inquiry and we can't comment further," the spokesperson said.

The Community and Public Sector Union urged the Albanese government to lift staffing levels at the Commission which has been constricted by a cap tying it to 2006 employment levels.

The measure introduced by the Coalition government in the 2015-16 federal budget has kept the agency reliant on temporary labour. The commission employed 367 APS staff at the end of the 2022 financial year, and 163 contractors, spending $17.5 million.

CPSU deputy secretary Beth Vincent-Pietsch said in a statement, "Workloads are unmanageable, there is a huge overreliance on labour hire staff including a large recent intake, and the NDIS commission has fallen severely behind on doing the job it is there to do.

"CPSU members have very real concerns about the delays to investigations into serious incidents that exist because of their out-of-control workloads."

Ms Vincent-Pietsch said staff "care deeply" about the work of the commission, which fields complaints and regulates disability providers, "but understaffing is putting this at risk".

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"CPSU delegates have been instrumental in highlighting that NDIS Commission staff have not been given the tools or time to do their jobs and support people with disability in our communities, including raising it directly with the minister," she said.

"But the time for conversations is now over, it is time for action."

Speaking at the National Press Club in April, Mr Shorten said the government would increase staffing levels at the National Disability Insurance Agency, a separate agency to the Commission.

The NDIS commission was contacted for comment, but did not respond by time of publication.

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