DATE OF ISSUE: 27 NOVEMBER 1992

DECEMBER 1992 QUARTERLY ADVICES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction..............................................................3

Quarterly Advices.........................................................3

Associated Departmental Instructions...........................................4

Regulation 45A certification..................................................4

Telephone Allowance - Indexation & Quarterly Payment.............................4

Rates of TA payment.................................................4

ADP Processing..........................................................4

Interface..........................................................4

Additional Processing runs.............................................5

PIPS processing....................................................5

Pre Increase Action..................................................5

Parameter Cards....................................................5

Limitation Cases....................................................5

Fringe Benefits - no changes...........................................6

Action Schedules.........................................................6

Suspension cases...................................................6

Frozen Action Records................................................6

CDB/PMF mismatch cases.............................................7

Manual Methods of Assessment.........................................7

Manual DP Recorded on the CDB.......................................7

Assessment Errors..................................................7

Timetable...............................................................8

Advices.................................................................8

Holding of daily advices...............................................8

Despatch of Quarterly Advices..........................................8

Reprint of selected advices............................................8

Liaison with Ferntree Computer Centre (NCC)....................................8

Contact numbers..........................................................9

Advices Paragraph Contents.................................................10

Sequencing of paragraphs.............................................10

Example of an advice letter ..................................................11

Introduction

There will be an increase in the rate of Dependant Child Add-On (DCAO) and Guardian's Allowance (GA) because of CPI indexation, on the 7 January 1993 payday.  There will also be an amending legislation increase in the rate of Remote Area Allowance (RAA) for service pensioners.

2. Revised pages for the Pension Payments Codebook, and new DP rate cards, will be issued prior to the payday by the Benefits Systems Management  & Support Section.

3. The new rates will be:

Dependant Child Add-on:

.each dependant child under 13 years $60.80 increased to $61.90,

.each child aged 13-15 years $85.90 increased to $87.40,

.each non-prescribed child $34.00 (no change),

.Guardian's Allowance $28.70 increased to $29.00.

Remote Area Allowance:

.single pensioner $14.00 pf increased to $17.50 pf,

.married pensioners $12.00 pf each increased to $15.00 pf each,

.each child $7.00 pf (no change).

4. On the same payday the quarterly payment of Telephone Allowance (TA) will be made to eligible pensioners.

5. The above events will be integrated with the Quarterly Advices mailout exercise.  Those service pensioners with GA/DCAO/RAA, disability pensioners not on SP but eligible for TA, and those clients including war widows in Qld, WA, TAS and NT, and Victorian first war War Widows who are eligible for TA (TA only advice) but who have not already been advised regarding TA with the card issue (DI B49/92 refers) will receive a Quarterly Advice letter containing the appropriate details for the relevant event(s).

6. Although this processing does not constitute a full Statutory Increase (SI), the major re-assessment program ("BAL") will be run selectively to re-assess all cases with income/assets affected by any of the events mentioned above.

7. The rate of allowances paid to children in the Veterans' Children Education Scheme (VCES) and the Orphan's Pensions may also be reviewed.  A separate instruction relating to procedures to effect any variation will, if needed, be prepared and published separately by Benefits SM&S section.

Quarterly Advices

8. Comparatively few service pensioners will receive an advice on this occasion.  Where a service pension assessment is a joint assessment (ie married), one joint advice will be produced.  Advices will be issued for the following circumstances:

.where GA is payable (full SP advice incl TA if eligible);

.where DCAO is payable (full SP advice incl TA if eligible);

.where RAA is payable (full SP advice incl TA if eligible);

.where DP pensioners without SP are eligible for TA (TA only advice);

.those clients including War Widows in Qld, WA, TAS and NT, and Victorian first war War Widows eligible for TA (TA only advice) who have not already been advised regarding TA with the card issue (DI B49/92 refers).

Associated Departmental Instructions

9. Departmental Instruction B25/92 set out eligibility criteria and other details relating to TA, while DI B26/92 outlined general principles covering the issue of quarterly advices.  In addition, State Program Managers (Benefits) and System Support Officers have been provided with copies of the rules for this processing run, entitled December 1992 Quarterly Advices System Rules and Components, which contains details of paragraph wording.

10. The Statutory Increase, TA  and Quarterly Advice processing is scheduled from Friday evening 18 December till Sunday 20 December 1992.  ADP processing guidelines and a  timetable  appear later in this instruction.

Regulation 45A certification

11. 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.

Telephone Allowance - Indexation & Quarterly Payment

12. 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.  Significant dates for this exercise appear later in this instruction.  A further DI on TA will be issued later this year, chiefly covering arrears issues.

Rates of TA payment

13. The three rates of TA payment  are the same as for the 1 October payday, namely:

.the World War 1 rate is $165 pa ($41.30 per quarter);

.the Base Rate is $52.80 pa ($13.20 per quarter); and

.the Half Base Rate is $26.40 pa ($6.60 per quarter).

14. The quarterly TA payment amount will be shown on a person's payment advice, in the paragraph  immediately following the payment details box.

15. There is no actual pension re-assessment in this exercise, so no fringe benefits variations should occur and hence no-one should gain or lose TA eligibility in the run.

ADP Processing

16. Friday, 18 December is the cutoff date for pay period 13 (24 December).  The daily Interface and PMF Update processing runs will be scheduled that evening as usual.  The Quarterly Advices runs will commence later on Friday evening or on the weekend.

17. Prior to pension re-assessment processing, a run will occur to adjust the value of any disposed (deprived) asset or income amounts (which are due for deletion or depletion because they have reached or passed  their anniversary date) and delete fringe benefits (from those cases where the 13 week period of grace has expired).  The output from this run will be sent to Branches; it will NOT be incorporated in the quarterly advices.  Any other processing run required (eg Education Allowance, Orphan's Pensions) will be conducted independantly for that payday and will not impact on the transactions generated for this advice run.

PIPS processing

18. PIPS processing can be carried out by Branch staff as per normal, prior to and immediately after the weekend of 19/20 December.  However, client assessments which have Guardians Allowance, Dependant Child Add-On or Remote Area Allowance should NOT be in "frozen" status (ie submitted "SB" or determined "PY" status) over the weekend.  The BAL re-assessment program will not update any assessment where a frozen action record exists (SB or PY status) and any such cases will be listed for subsequent manual processing by Branch staff.

19. Although comparatively few pension records will be processed by BAL,  it is clearly desirable to minimise the number of cases with DCAO, GA or RAA which are in frozen status as at interface on Friday 18 December (which is also the payday 13 cutoff).

20. The weekend processing runs will be applied to current CDB records even where an action record exists in investigation (IN) or re-investigation (RI) status for that assessment.  Although the current assessment will be updated, data in the action record will NOT be updated by the runs.  For this exercise, however, this should be of no consequance as the correct rates of GA, DCAO or RAA will be inserted by the submission program when the examiner submits the action.

21. As well as minimising the number of frozen actions, the following additional steps should be taken prior to interface/close-off on Friday, 18 December, to minimise the need for subsequent manual actions:

.ensure any outstanding multiple segment (MS) cases are resolved; and

.resolve any SP Compare reconciliation edits.

22. Parameter cards and rate tables have been prepared at Central Office to effect the automatic updating of  GA, DCAO and RAA and list those requiring manual action.  These cards will be input to the system by Central Office.

23. Cases for which limitations are in force will have any pension variations performed automatically, but the limitation amount will not be adjusted.  Identification of these cases and any adjustment to the limitation amount must be arranged locally; i.e., a listing will NOT be produced as part of the Quarterly Advices run and Branch staff will need to arrange a suitable ADP job as needed.

Fringe Benefits - no changes

24. As mentioned before fringe benefit variations should NOT occur in this run.  Any case involving fringe benefit change will be sent to the NCC to produce the advice.  These will then be sent to Branch Offices for manual examination as to whether the circumstances are correct and whether the advice is relevant.

Action Schedules

25. The weekend run will produce schedules of cases which cannot be processed automatically by the relevant programs, or which have been processed but require further examination.  These listings are discussed in the paragraphs which follow.  Where possible, manual processing should be completed before the close-off for the payday.

26. In addition to the schedules for manual action, the Advices system will generate schedules of cases which could not be issued a Quarterly Advice.  These schedules will be despatched separately, after the Quarterly Advices have been lodged, and are not dealt with in this instruction.

27. Cases to be submitted to MS can be prepared on the schedules provided, by coding the relevant PMF segments and writing the MS consecutive number beside the case, for determination by a delegate in lieu of preparing D408 coding sheets for each case.

28. MS and manual transactions should be transmitted to the Computer Centre in the normal pension payment daily stream i.e. keyfast description $PENSIO, prior to the cut-off for payperiod 14 (7 January 1993).

Suspension cases

29. Where a part or total suspension occurs on the PMF, the rate and suspension amount should be re-assessed, and the case processed  through an MS submission.

30. When cases in PY or SB status are encountered by the SI program, update is prohibited because the record is frozen.  The cases need to be unfrozen and re-processed as follows:

.              Return case to RI status (Cancel Determination &/or Cancel Submission);

.              Re-process case using this SI as the last variation (if effective date is prior to the SI date enter arrears line for effective date);

.              Submit to MS or DA as appropriate and prepare D408 in MS cases;

.              Determine case as per normal.

CDB/PMF mismatch cases

31. Cases will need to be investigated to determine the cause of the discrepancy, then the CDB or PMF corrected as necessary.

Manual Methods of Assessment

32. Service pension cases with a manual MOA need to be manually re-assessed and the new rates processed through the PIPS system as normal.

Manual DP Recorded on the CDB

33. This schedule lists in PMF transaction format cases with the following DP codes on  the CDB:

.EATS

.COMP (Composite/Proviso 'C')

.DIV 10 (Members of the Defence Force)

.MAN, MISC, CONVERSION DATA

34. The DP should be examined, the new rates entered on the screen and the case submitted through MS if applicable.  Rates of both SP and DP should be amended as necessary on the schedule.

35. The assessment routine will produce information messages as an indication that certain action should be taken as a result of the re-assessment.

36. A number of conditions may exist on the CDB which require additional investigation beyond the normal process.  The cases listed will already be automatically processed or will appear for action on the schedules.  The conditions are detailed below:

.Last SI not processed - case not processed in the last ST that effected the case.  Check to ensure action was taken.

.Old SI process codes deleted - before SI processing,  any old SI process code (S183) will be deleted.  Action on these will depend on the reason the old process exists, but most will not require any corrective action.

.Manual arrears cases - cases where the current effective date is in advance of the SI date.   Examine cases to ensure any adjustment for the period between the SI date and the current effective date is made.

.Data Base Error detected - these cases will fail SI processing, and should be referred immediately to ADP for action.

.Transaction Generation Errors - the equivalent of Interface errors in normal daily production.  Corrective action as for Interface errors.

Timetable

37. Key timeframes are summarised below. The processing runs will begin on the evening of  Friday 18 December or the next day.

DateEvent

Fri, 18 Dec 1992 — Cutoff for pay period 13 (24 Dec), at usual time.

Fri, 18 Dec

to Sun, 20 Dec 1992 — BAL re-assessment run; TA & Quarterly               Advices processing runs.

Mon, 20 Dec New allowance rates on system.

Daily advices produced from today to be               held till Quarterly advices despatched.

Mon, 20 Dec to                 Examiner action on manual schedules for cutoff for pay 14               DCAO/GA/RAA..

Wed, 23 Dec — Quarterly Advices lodged with Australia               Post

Advices

Holding of daily advices

38. Daily payment advices, produced for pay period 14 (7 January 1993), containing reference to DCAO, GA or RAA 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 7 January will receive their daily advice after the quarterly advice rather than in advance of it.

Despatch of Quarterly Advices

39. The quarterly advices will be progressively lodged with Australia Post by the mailing house in Melbourne, on Wednesday, 23 December 1992. As soon as each State's advices have been lodged, the CO Project Manager will advise your Branch's contact officer.

Reprint of Selected Advices

40. 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 7828.

Liaison with Ferntree Computer Centre (NCC)

41. The Veterans Services Applications Branch will provide the 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

42. Any enquiries should be directed in the first instance to Peter Rogers in Policy Development & Implementation Section, on (03) 284 6663 or Colette Woodford on (06) 289 6684.  Facsimile messages should be sent to (03) 284 6797.

Kay Grimsley

Assistant Secretary

Income Support

Attachment 1

Advices Paragraph Contents

This attachment summarises the sequencing and contents of paragraphs used in the December 1992 advices

PARAGRAPHCOMMENTS

Branch Office address & phone no.ALL (V,N,Q,S,W,T,NQ)

Date — ALL

File number — ALL (incl State indicator)

Name and address ALL

Salutation — ALL

Reasons for Variation:--

  - DCAO/GA/RAA IF APPROPRIATE

Payment details heading — ALL

Payment variation/continuation  ALL

Payment box ALL

Telephone Allowance paragraph — IF APPROPRIATE

Financial Obligations All SP except some blinded

Authority to impose obligations — ALL SP

Changed Circumstances — ALL SP

Closing paragraph — ALL

Signature block — ALL (STATE SPECIFIC)

ATTACHMENT 2

SERVICE PENSIONERCommonwealth Department of

COUPLE WITH DCAOVeterans' Affairs

AND TA

BRANCH OFFICE

Centennial Plaza

280 Elizabeth Street

Sydney   NSW   2000

Postal Address:

JOHN B CITIZEN — GPO Box 3994, Sydney   NSW   2001

SARAH B CITIZEN

44 ANZAC AVENUE — Telephone:

HOMEBUSH BAY   2140 — Metropolitan residents: 213 7777

Country resident:  008 257251

21 December 1992

Your file number is NX123456

Dear Mr and Mrs Citizen

Increase rates of allowances

There has been an increase in the rate of allowances payable to pensioners with dependant children, and pensioners living in remote areas.  Your new payment rates are shown below.

Payment Details

The amount of pension you receive each fortnight is set out below.  Payment at this rate will be made on 7 January 1993.

PAYMENTS TO (JOHN CITIZEN) and (SARAH BE CITIZEN)

Disability pension at 80% rate              169.68

Service pension              255.30              255.30

Additional pension for children              87.40

Pharmaceutical Allowance              5.20              5.20

TOTAL FORTNIGHTLY PAYMENT              $517.58              $260.50

Telephone Allowance payment

Your quarterly telephone Allowance of ($6.60 each) will be paid to you on (7 January 1993).  This amount is in addition to your fortnightly payments of pension and allowances, which are set out above.

Telephone Allowance is paid each quarter.  Your next payment of Telephone Allowance will be on 1 April 1993.  You must tell us if you cease to be a telephone subscriber.

Your Obligations to the Department

You must tell the Department within 21 days if your (combined) income rises above ($999) a fortnight.  You must also tell us if the value of your assets rises about ($999999).  You can do this by telephoning or writing to us or by visiting any Department of Veterans' Affairs office.  The address and telephone number is shown at the top of this letter.  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.  There are penalties that apply for failing to fulfil your obligations or for providing false or misleading information.

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 included when sending this letter.  If this is the case, we will be sending your another letter as soon as the change has been put into place.

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,

GK Stonehouse

Deputy Commissioner as

Delegate of the Secretary