DATE OF ISSUE:  24 AUGUST 1994

SEPTEMBER 1994 QUARTERLY ADVICES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction...............................................................25

Associated Departmental Instructions............................................25

Regulation 45A certification...................................................25

Pensioners For Whom An Advice Will Be Generated.................................26

Components for the September Quarterly Advice Mailout..............................26

Pension Indexation - Pensions, Rent Assistance and Rent Thresholds Indexations.....26

Quarterly Advice Processing.................................27

Client Impact............................................27

On-line Shares 'Global' Reassessment.....................................27

MI 'Global' Reassessment..............................................28

Telephone Allowance - Quarterly Payment..................................28

Quarterly Advice Processing.................................28

Rates Of Telephone Allowance...............................28

Advices - General..........................................................29

ADP Processing.....................................................29

Timetable..........................................................29

Holding of Daily Advices................................................29

Despatch of Quarterly Advices...........................................30

Reprint of Selected Advices.............................................30

Liaison with Ferntree Computer Centre (NCC)................................30

Contact numbers.....................................................30

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 September Quarterly Advice mailout will incorporate the following events for pay-day 29 September 1994:

.pension indexation;

.rent assistance and rent threshold indexation;

.telephone allowance payment;

.shares reassessment;

.managed investment reassessment; and

.notification of changes to frequency of quarterly advices.

3.  The reassessment processing run and Advice production will be conducted on the weekend of 10/11 September 1994.  No fortnightly run for deprived assets and Profit Fort 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 September 1994 Quarterly Advices System Rules and Components, which contains details of paragraph wording.

6.   The payment processing is scheduled from Friday evening 9 September till Sunday evening 11 September 1994.  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.  A quarterly advice is to be produced:

(a)where service pension and/or, rent assistance is increased/decreased as a result of  indexation.  The advice may include other relevant paragraphs such as

.where a service pensioner has shares and/or managed investments particulars recorded in the assessment;

.where a service pensioner is in receipt of telephone allowance;

(b)where disability pensioner or war widow(er)s pension without SP is varied as a result of indexation and the pensioners are in receipt of telephone allowance;

(c)where a WW1 veteran not in receipt of service pension or disability pension is in receipt of telephone allowance and has a PMF record.

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

War Widows with TA	70,500
DP only clients with TA	4,000
SP, no MI, no shares, no TA	20,000
SP, no MI, no shares, with TA	159,000
SP, with or without MIs or shares, with or without TA	27,000
TOTAL	280,500

Components for the September Quarterly Advice Mailout

Pension Indexation - Pensions, Rent Assistance and Rent Thresholds Indexations

10.  Service pensions, disability pensions, war widow(er) pensions, rent assistance and rent thresholds are to be increased in line with movements in the consumer price index (CPI).  The effective date for payment is 29 September 1994.

11.  In general terms, pension and allowances will be increased with effect from

29 September 1994: the exception is rent assistance.  Whilst the maximum rates of rent assistance will be increased, the rent thresholds (ie. the minimum amount of rent a person must pay to qualify for rent assistance) are also being indexed on 29 September 1994.  Indexation of the rent thresholds means that service pensioners with 'non-saved' rent assistance may have their rent assistance reduced or cancelled.

Quarterly Advice Processing

12.  A quarterly advice will be produced for all service pensioners, for disability pensioners and war widow(er)s affected by indexation and who are in receipt of telephone allowance and for WW1 veterans not in receipt of service pension or disability pension but in receipt of telephone allowance.  The range of paragraphs, the circumstances under which these will be applied and the paragraph wording are shown in the September 1994 Quarterly Advices System Rules & Components document.  Mock-up sample advices are at Attachment A.

Client Impact

13.  Approximately 280,500 pensioner households will receive a quarterly advice regarding indexation.

On-line Shares 'Global' Reassessment

14.  A 'Global' reassessment run will be conducted for pay-day 29 September 1994.  The reassessment program will reassess both pre and post 18 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.

15.  There may be increases, decreases or continuations as a result of reassessment.  All shares acquired before 19 August 1992 are 'saved' and assessed under the old rules.

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

Quarterly Advice Processing - Shares

17.  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.

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

MI 'Global' Reassessment

19.  A 'Global' reassessment run will be conducted for pay-day 29 September 1994.  There may be increases, decreases or continuations as a result of the reassessment.

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

Quarterly Advice Processing - Managed Investments

21.  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.

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

Telephone Allowance - Quarterly Payment

23.  The first quarterly payments of Telephone Allowance (TA)  were made in July 1992.  Departmental Instruction 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

24.  Telephone Allowance will be paid to eligible pensioners for pay day 29 September 1994 in the normal way.  A Telephone Allowance (TA) paragraph will be included for any automatic assessment where TA is payable.

25.  Cases which have a manual method of assessment (e.g. War Widow with SP, Hardship etc.) and which are eligible for TA will not have a 'TA only' quarterly advice generated.  Branches will need to advise clients of TA payment when notifying of any pension variations actioned manually.

26.  The range of 'telephone allowance' paragraphs, the circumstances under which these will be applied and the paragraph wording are shown in the September 1994 Quarterly Advices System Rules & Components document.  A mock-up sample advice is at Attachment A.

Rates Of Telephone Allowance

27.  Three rates of TA are payable; the World War 1 rate, the Base rate and half the Base rate.  The rates of TA are:

.Half Base Rate - $7.00;

.Base Rate - $14.00; &

.WW1 Rate - $42.50.

Advices - General

ADP Processing

28.  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

29.  Key time frames of advices are summarised below. The first processing run will begin on the evening of  Friday 9 September 1994.

Holding of Daily Advices

30.  Cases processed in advance for day 1 of 29 September 1994 should have the daily advice despatched prior to the Quarterly Advice being sent.

31.  Daily payment advices produced after the processing run on 10/11 September 1994 for pay period 59 (29 September 1994), should be held by Branch Offices until confirmation is received from the Quarterly Advices Project Manager in Central Office to release such advices.  This will ensure that pensioners who have pension variations processed for payday 29 September 1994 will receive their daily advice after the quarterly advice rather than in advance of it.

32.  To minimise the number of daily advices to be held whilst quarterly advices are processed, it is suggested that only manual cases (and essential processing) should be processed for pay day 29 September 1994.  General pensions processing should continue unabated but should be submitted for the subsequent pay day ie. pay period 60 - 13 October 1994.

Despatch of Quarterly Advices

33.  The quarterly advices will be progressively lodged with Australia Post by the mailing house in Canberra, during the period 19 September 1994 to 23 September 1994.  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 to Branch Office System Support Officers.

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 Margaret Crombie in Policy Development & Implementation Section, on (06) 289 6187 or Mary Martin, on (06) 289 6743.  Facsimile messages should be sent to (06) 289 6553.

KAY GRIMSLEY

ASSISTANT SECRETARY INCOME SUPPORT

September Quarterly Advice - Mock-ups

SERVICE PENSIONER COUPLE - Indexation & TA payment

Commonwealth Department of Veterans' Affairs

BRANCH OFF ICE

Centennial Plaza

280 Elizabeth Street

Sydney NSW 2000

Postal Address:

BALDRICK McBOW

GPO Box 3994, Sydney NSW 2001

ROBERTA McBOW

2 BLACKADDER DRIVE

Telephone:

BEANSWICK 2990

Metropolitan residents:2137777

Country residents: 008 257251

14 September 1994

YOUR FILE NUMBER IS NX543210

Dear Mr and Mrs McBow

This letter gives you details of your pension payment from Veterans' Affairs.

Indexation of Pension

Service pensions and disability pensions have been increased in line with movements in the consumer price index (CPI).  The new rates will be paid on pay day 29 September 1994.

Payment Details

The fortnightly rate of pension you will receive from 29 September 1994 is set out below.

PAYMENTS TO BALDRICK McBOW and ROBERTA McBOW

	TOTAL FORTNIGHTLY PAYMENT	$270.80	$270.80
	Comprising:
	-Service pension	268.20	268.20
	-Pharmaceutical allowance	2.60	2.60

Telephone Allowance

Your quarterly Telephone Allowance of  $7.00 each will be paid to you on 29 September 1994 in addition to that fortnight's pension payment.  Your next payment of Telephone Allowance will be on 5 January 1995.  You must tell us if you cease to be a telephone subscriber.

Your Obligations to the Department

Your obligations have been explained to you in previous advices.  These obligations still apply, but the relevant income and asset levels may have changed.  These are shown below.

Your service pension is paid under the income test at the maximum rate.  You must tell the Department within 21 days if your combined income (apart from Veterans' Affairs pensions) rises above $156 a fortnight.  You must also tell us if the value of your assets rises above $163,500.

You can do this by telephoning or writing to us or by visiting any Department of Veterans' Affairs office.  If you telephone, we may ask you to confirm information in writing or to send us certain documents which are related to the matter.

If you do not tell us of these changes you may be overpaid.  Penalties apply for failing to fulfil your obligations or for providing false or misleading information.  The authority for this obligation is under Section 54 of the Veterans' Entitlements Act.

Changes You Have Already Told Us About

If you have told us recently about a change to your income and assets or your domestic situation, it may not have been processed before this letter was sent.  If so, we will send you another letter as soon as the change has been finalised.

New Notification Arrangements

In the past, the Department has written to you each time your pension amount has changed or when Telephone Allowance was paid.  Many pensioners have commented on the frequency, length and amount of detail contained in the letters.  Consequently, the Department has reviewed the content and frequency of these letters and has decided to make some improvements.

Under the new arrangements, we will write to all Service Pensioners and Income Support Supplement payees in July each year.  This letter will give you details of your income and assets currently held by Veterans' Affairs and also your obligations regarding any changes to those details.  It will include your Group Certificate if your pension is taxable income.

Service Pensioners and Telephone Allowance payees will now receive a calendar which will include Veterans' Affairs Pension pay days, Telephone Allowance pay days and other relevant information for the next year.  The calendar will be mailed to you in December each year.

We will continue to write to you about your pension payment when your personal financial circumstances have changed and this changes your pension.  But we will not

write to you if you are on the maximum rate of Service Pension and the only change in your pension is caused by a Consumer Price Index (CPI) variation.  In future, Consumer Price Index (CPI) changes to the rates of Service Pension and other allowances, and the effective dates for these changes, will be published in the "Veterans' Affairs News", "Age Pension News" and other newspapers.

We believe that these new arrangements will be more convenient for you.

If you have any questions about any of the above matters, please contact this office at the address or telephone number shown at the top of this letter.

Yours sincerely,

G K Stonehouse

Deputy Commissioner as

Delegate of the Secretary