DATE OF ISSUE:  7 March 1996

MARCH 1996 QUARTERLY ADVICES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

1.  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 and income support supplement pensioners.  The size of the mailout is dependent on the issues (eg. Budget changes, pension indexation, etc) current at that time.

2.  The March Quarterly Advice mailout will incorporate the following events for pay-day 28 March 1996:

• pension indexation;

• rent assistance and rent threshold indexation, plus $5.00 increase;

• financial institutions reassessment (plus or minus 0.25%);

• shares reassessment;

• managed investment reassessment;

• saved rent assistance; and

3.  The reassessment processing run and Advice production will be conducted on the weekend of 9/10 March 1996.  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 State System Support Officers.

Rules for Processing

5.  The Commission decision of April 1994 outlines 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 March 1996 Quarterly Advices System Rules and Components, which contains details of paragraph wording.

6.  The payment processing is scheduled from Friday evening 8 March till Sunday evening 10 March 1996.  A processing timetable appears later in this instruction.

Pensioners For Whom An Advice Will Be Generated

7.  A quarterly advice is to be produced:

• where a less than maximum rate service pension, less than maximum rate income support supplement (less than ceiling rate of $120.10) and/or, rent assistance is varied as a result of indexation.  The advice may include other relevant paragraphs, such as managed investments and listed shares.

• where clients are effected by the saved rent assistance changes.

8.  The estimated numbers of advices for this run is approximately 115,000 (75,000 households).

9.  The two sites for Quarterly Advice printing will be used due to the size of this run.  The data, which is to be supplied on cartridge for NSW and VIC will be printed at Leigh Mardon (Melbourne).  The data for the rest (QLD, SA WA and TAS), which will be supplied on cartridge, will be printed at Lane Bros (Adelaide).

10.  Special register and overseas advices will be printed at the NCC and forwarded to the relevant State Office.

Components for the March Quarterly Advice Mailout

Pension Indexation - Pensions, Rent Assistance and Rent Thresholds Indexations

11.  Service pensions, Income support supplement, 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 28 March 1996.

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

28 March 1996, the exception is rent assistance.  From 20 March 1996, both the Department of Social Security (DSS) and the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) will increase the rent thresholds by $5.00 across the four thresholds.

13.  Also from 20 March 1996, both DSS and DVA will increase the rent assistance available to families (Service Pensioners/Income Support Supplement recipients) by $5.00 per fortnight.  This increase is to assist families renting privately as they have a higher incidence of poverty and housing stress than do families in other forms of housing.

Client Impact

14.  Approximately 12335 clients will be affected by the $5.00 increase in rent assistance thresholds.

15.  Approximately 160 families will be affected by the $5.00 increase in rent assistance to families.

One-off additional Paragraphs

16.  There are two one-off additional paragraphs for the March 1996 advice run.  One is in relation to the change of payday in April 1996, the second covers changes to advice letters for CPI clients only.

Quarterly Advice Processing

17.  A quarterly advice will be produced for less than maximum rate service pensioners and less than maximum rate income support supplement pensioners affected by indexation. The range of paragraphs, the circumstances under which these will be applied and the paragraph wording are shown in the March 1996 Quarterly Advices System Rules & Components document and Mock up samples.

18.  A 'Global' reassessment run will be conducted for pay-day 28 March 1996.  There may be increases, decreases or continuations as a result of financial institutions reassessment.

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

Quarterly Advice Processing - Financial Institutions

20.  Quarterly advice paragraphs will be produced for service pensioners and ISS with financial institutions.

21.  The range of paragraphs, the circumstances under which these will be applied and the paragraph wording are shown in the March 1996 Quarterly Advices System Rules & Components document and Mock up samples.

22.  A 'Global' reassessment run will be conducted for pay-day 28 March 1996.  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.

23.  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.

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

Quarterly Advice Processing - Shares

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

26.  The range of paragraphs, the circumstances under which these will be applied and the paragraph wording are shown in the March 1996 Quarterly Advices System Rules & Components document and Mock up samples.

MI 'Global' Reassessment

27.  A 'Global' reassessment run will be conducted for pay-day 28 March 1996.  There may be increases, decreases or continuations as a result of the reassessment.

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

Quarterly Advice Processing - Managed Investments

29.  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.

30.  The range of paragraphs, the circumstances under which these will be applied and the paragraph wording are shown in the March 1996 Quarterly Advices System Rules & Components document and Mock-up samples.

Advices - General

ADP Processing

31.  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

32.  Key time frames of advices are summarised below. The first processing run will begin on the evening of  Friday 8 March 1996.

Holding of Daily Advices

33.  Cases processed in advance for day 1 of 28 March 1996 should have the daily advice despatched prior to the Quarterly Advice being sent.

34.  Daily payment advices produced after the processing run on 9/10 March 1996 for pay period 20 (28 March 1996), should be held by State Offices until confirmation is received from the Quarterly Advices Project Officer in National Office to release such advices.  This will ensure that pensioners who have pension variations processed for payday 28 March 1996 will receive their daily advice after the quarterly advice rather than in advance of it.

35.  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 28 March 1996.  General pensions processing should continue unabated but should be submitted for the subsequent pay day ie. pay period 21 March - 11 April 1996.

36.  The quarterly advices will be progressively lodged with Australia Post by the mailing houses in Melbourne and Adelaide, during the period 18 March 1996 to 22 March 1996.  As soon as each State's advices have been lodged, the Project Officer will advise the appropriate State contact officer.

Reprint of Selected Advices

37.  Any requests for reprints of individual Quarterly Advices should be referred to State Office System Support Officers.

Liaison with Ferntree Computer Centre (NCC)

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

Contact numbers

39.  Any enquires should be directed to Danielle Moloney, on (06) 289 6681 in Communication, Operations and Review Section.  Facsimile messages should be sent on (06) 289 6553.

PAUL MCBOW

A/ DIRECTOR

COMMUNICATIONS, OPERATIONS AND REVIEW