DATE OF ISSUE: 6 DECEMBER 1993

JANUARY 1994 QUARTERLY ADVICES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction...............................................................1

Associated Departmental Instructions............................................2

Regulation 45A certification...................................................2

Pensioners For Whom An Advice Will Be Generated.................................2

Family Payments - Pension Rate Changes........................................3

Components for the January Quarterly Advice Mailout................................3

Shares 'Global' Reassessment...........................................3

MI 'Global' Reassessment..............................................4

Family Payments.....................................................4

Telephone Allowance - Quarterly Payment..................................5

Advices - General..........................................................5

ADP Processing.....................................................5

Timetable..........................................................5

Holding of Daily Advices................................................6

Despatch of Quarterly Advices...........................................6

Reprint of Selected Advices.............................................6

Liaison with Ferntree Computer Centre (NCC)................................6

Contact numbers.....................................................6

January Quarterly Advice - Mock-ups............................................7

Sale/leaseback agreement....................................................21

Description.........................................................21

Income and Assets Tests Treatment.......................................21

Line of Credit..............................................................21

Description.........................................................21

Income and Assets Tests Treatment.......................................21

Home Equity Conversion Loan.................................................22

Description.........................................................22

Income and Assets Tests Treatment.......................................23

Reverse Annuity Mortgage....................................................23

Description.........................................................23

Income and Assets Tests Treatment.......................................23

January Quarterly Advice - Mock-ups......................................8

Introduction

The Department's Quarterly Advices facility has been designed to enhance communication between the Department and the veteran community.  In general, Quarterly Advices are sent in January, March, June and September of each year.  Advices are sent to service pensioners, some disability pensioners and some war widows.  The size of the mailout is dependent on the issues (eg. Budget changes, payment of TA etc) current at that time.

2.  The January Quarterly Advice mailout will incorporate the following events for pay-day 6 January 1994:

.the 'On-Line Shares Refresh';

.the 'Managed Investments Refresh'; and

.changes to family payments;

-indexation of Dependant Child Add On (DCAO) and Guardian's Allowance; and

-the policy changes to family payments from the beginning of next year.

3.  The reassessment processing run and Advice production will be conducted on the weekend of 18/19 December 1993.  No fortnightly run for deprived assets, 'end period of grace' or Managed Investments will be done prior to the weekend Quarterly Advice run and will therefore not impact on the transactions generated for the Quarterly Advices run.

4.  The major reassessment program ("BAL") will be run to reassess cases affected by any of the events above.  Detailed ADP processing requirements will be sent separately to Branch System Support Officers.

Associated Departmental Instructions

5.  DI B26/92 outlined general principles covering the issue of quarterly advices.  In addition, System Support Officers have been provided with copies of the rules for this processing run, entitled January 1994 Quarterly Advices System Rules and Components, which contains details of paragraph wording.

6. The payment processing is scheduled from Saturday morning 18 December till Sunday evening 19 December 1993.  A processing timetable appears later in this instruction.

Regulation 45A certification

7.  The Assistant Secretary of both Benefits Planning & Management and IT Applications Branches in Central Office will attest to the correctness of the new data and the programs used to conduct the exercise.  Certificates in the terms of Finance Regulation 45A will be forwarded to the Authorising Officer in your Finance Branch.

Pensioners For Whom An Advice Will Be Generated

8.  In general terms, advices will only be produced for assessments affected by one or more of the events listed in paragraph 2 above.  Advices will therefore be issued in the following circumstances:

.where a service pensioner has a DCAO or GA amount that will be indexed, or varied due to family payment changes, on 6 January 1994; or

.where service pension is varied as a result of the shares and/or managed investment reassessments.

NOTE:  A generic 'TA payment' paragraph will be inserted into every advice produced for the January Quarterly Advice mailout.

9.  The estimated numbers of advices for this run are as follows:

Shares reassessment - variations only 1,500

MI reassessment - variations only — 17,000

Family Payments 3,000

TOTAL — 21,500

Family Payments - Pension Rate Changes

Listed below are the new rates effective 6 January 1994.

Dependant Child Add-onOld RateNew Rate

Under 13 years$61.90$64.20

13 to 15 years$87.40$90.60

Guardians AllowanceOld RateNew Rate

29.00$29.60

Orphan's PensionOld RateNew Rate

Single — 53.90$55.00

Double — 107.80$109.90

Permissible Child EarningsOld RateOld Rate

225.40$229.70

Components for the January Quarterly Advice Mailout

Shares 'Global' Reassessment

10.  A 'Global' reassessment run will be conducted for pay-day 6 January 1994; this will be the first time that a shares 'Global' reassessment program will be run.  The reassessment program will reassess both pre and post 19 August 1992 shares.  Reassessment of post 18 August 1992 shares may have a direct effect (due to the MI/shares offsetting provisions) on the income assessed for managed investments.

11.  There may be increases, decreases or continuations associated with the implementation of the new rules.  All shares acquired before 19 August 1992 are 'saved' and assessed under the old rules.  There is expected to be only a small number of pensioners with post 18 August 1992 shares data collected (mainly new claims and pensioner initiated reviews) or with post fees recorded.

12.  Branch Offices are to follow up outstanding non returned shares data collection forms.  The Sydney data base team will be highlighting newly released shares such as Woolworths in January 1994 for updating pensioner records with the post 18 August 1992 indicator.

13.  Payments which may be effected include service pension, DCAO, and RA.

Quarterly Advice Processing - Shares

14.  Quarterly advice paragraphs will be produced for service pensioners with shares.  Additional paragraphs regarding the new offsetting provisions will be included where a person has both managed investments and post 18 August 1992 shares recorded in the assessment.

15.  Advices are to be produced for service pensioners whose rate of service pension varies as a result of shares 'Global' reassessment.

16.  The range of paragraphs, the circumstances under which these will be applied and the paragraph wording are shown in the January 1994 Quarterly Advices System Rules & Components document.  Mock-up sample advices are at Attachment A.

MI 'Global' Reassessment

17.  A 'Global' reassessment run will be conducted for pay-day 6 January 1994.  The target group for advices will be service pensioners whose rate of service pension varies as a result of this reassessment.

18.  Payments which may be affected include service pension, DCAO, and RA.

Quarterly Advice Processing - Managed Investments

19.  Quarterly advice paragraphs will be produced for service pensioners with managed investments.  Additional paragraphs regarding the new offsetting provisions will be included where a person has both managed investments and post 18 August 1992 shares recorded in the assessment.

20.  Advices are to be produced for service pensioners whose rate of service pension varies as a result of managed investment reassessment.

21.  The range of paragraphs, the circumstances under which these will be applied and the paragraph wording are shown in the January 1994 Quarterly Advices System Rules & Components document.  Mock-up sample advices are at Attachment A.

Family Payments

22.  Dependant Child Add On (DCAO) and Guardian Allowance (GA) are to be indexed (in line with movements in the CPI) from 6 January 1994.  Some changes to family payments are also due to be implemented from payday 6 January 1994.  Detailed information regarding the changes to family payments will be available shortly in a separate Departmental Instruction.

Quarterly Advice Processing

23.  A quarterly advice will be produced for service pensioners receiving a DCAO or GA amount that will be indexed, or varied due to family payment changes, on 6 January 1994.  These cases will receive a generic advice about policy changes that will apply from next year.

24.  The range of paragraphs, the circumstances under which these will be applied and the paragraph wording are shown in the January 1994 Quarterly Advices System Rules & Components document.  Mock-up sample advices are at Attachment A.

Client Impact

25.  Approximately 3000 cases will receive a quarterly advice regarding family payments.

Telephone Allowance - Quarterly Payment

26.  The first quarterly payments of Telephone Allowance (TA)  were made in July 1992.  D.I. B25/92 sets out the eligibility criteria and processing guidelines.  That instruction should be consulted as necessary, but references to processing dates should of course be ignored.

Quarterly Advice Processing

27.  Telephone Allowance will be paid to eligible pensioners for pay day  6 January 1994 in the normal way.

28.  A generic 'reason for variation' paragraph will be inserted into every advice produced for the January Quarterly Advice mailout (ie. advices generated as a result of shares/managed investment reassessment or changes to family payments).  This means that, for this quarterly run only, no "TA only" advices will be produced.

29.  The paragraph sequencing and wording of the TA payment paragraphs are shown in the January 1994 Quarterly Advices System Rules & Components document.  Mock-up sample advices are at Attachment A.

Advices - General

ADP Processing

30. Detailed information regarding ADP Processing will be issued to State Systems Support Officers in a separate memorandum.  The Systems Support Officers will be issuing a local processing timetable and should be consulted on any matter concerning ADP Processing.

Timetable

31. Key time frames of advices are summarised below. The first processing run will begin on the evening of  Friday 17 December 1993.

DateEvent

Friday 17 Dec 1993 — Cutoff for payperiod 39 (23 Dec 93)

Friday 17 Dec 1993 (p.m.)Day 1 processing for payperiod 40.

Daily advices from this processing

to be despatched immediately.

Friday 17 Dec (pm)

to Sat. 18 Dec. BAL re-assessment run.

Sat. 18 Dec Quarterly Advices processing runs.

Mon. 20 Dec until cut-off for pay 40 — Examiner action on manual

schedules for SP.

&

Quarterly Advices progressively lodged with Australia               Post from 23 Dec to 30 Dec.

Holding of Daily Advices

32. Daily payment advices produced prior to the processing run should be despatched in the normal manner.  In general, it is suggested that daily payment advices produced after the run are also released to clients provided that these daily advices do not contain material on shares, managed investments or child payments.  Assessments containing shares, managed investments or shares should:

a)have processing deferred to a subsequent pay-day; or

b)be processed in the normal manner for pay-day 6 January 1994 but the daily advices held until confirmation is received from the Project Manager in Central Office to release such advices.

33. The quarterly advices will be progressively lodged with Australia Post by the mailing house in Canberra, during the period 23 December 1993 to 30 December 1993.  As soon as each State's advices have been lodged, the CO Project Manager will advise the appropriate Branch contact officer.

Reprint of Selected Advices

34. Any requests for reprints of individual Quarterly Advices should be referred through Branch Office System Support Officers to the Benefits Application Help Desk on (06) 289 6216.

Liaison with Ferntree Computer Centre (NCC)

35. The Veterans Services Applications Branch will provide NCC with a schedule of computer runs for this exercise.  Benefits SM&S Section will supply an after hours contact number closer to the processing date.

Contact numbers

36. Any enquiries should be directed to John Ramsay in Policy Development & Implementation Section, on (06)289 6409.  Facsimile messages should be sent to (06)289 6553.

KAY GRIMSLEY

ASSISTANT SECRETARY INCOME SUPPORT

THIS ATTACHMENT HAS BEEN REKEYED TO ENABLE IT TO BE INCLUDED ON 'THE GENERAL'

January Quarterly Advice - Mock-ups

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