B38/1991 EXCHANGE RATE ADJUSTMENTS TO BRITISH DISABILITYPENSIONS PAID IN AUSTRALIA

DATE OF ISSUE: 24 July 1991

EXCHANGE RATE ADJUSTMENTS TO BRITISH DISABILITYPENSIONS PAID IN AUSTRALIA

INTRODUCTION

1.Advice has been received from the British Department of Social Security (BDSS) to the effect that the exchange rate to be used for payment of the British component of disability pensions in Australia has been reviewed.

2.The new rate is to be put into effect on payday 22 August 1991. The exchange rate will vary from $A2.24 to $A2.17 to one Pound Sterling (British pension rates charts are at Attachment A).  The variation applies to the Hong Kong cases and to the EATS and Composite cases.

3.There will be no cases processed automatically. All cases will be listed for manual examination.

SERVICE PENSION CASES

4.A report will be produced of Service Pension cases with British Pension in payment to enable update of the DP amount for service pension assessment purposes.

5.Action schedules of cases requiring manual examination and variation by examiners will be produced, on 3 August 1991, in groups made up of the following:

ContentGroup Reference

Composite Cases — 100 (with or without SP)

EATS Cases — 200 (with or without SP)

Other overseas pensions — 300 (which may be affected).

Groups 300 are to be processed via the PMF update transactions.  Groups 100 and 200 are to be processed via PIPS.

PUNCHING OF TRANSACTIONS FROM "ACTION" SCHEDULES EATS AND COMPOSITE CASES

Pay Period Codes

6.Pay period 56 (effective date 22 August 1991) should be entered.  The day within the pay period field may be left blank.

Keyfast Batch Description

7.The manual transactions for EATS and Composite cases should be punched using Keyfast batch description $ PENSIO by cutoff for payday 22 August 1991.

CONTROL CARDS

8.Control card formats for computer runs are at Attachment B.

CASES WITH SERVICE PENSION AND/OR AN AUSTRALIAN DP COMPONENT TO BE PROCESSED VIA PIPS (Groups 100, 200)

9.For all cases involving EATS, Composite or service pension, whether automatic or manual method of assessment, the new rate of British pension must be updated on the Client Data Base (CDB) via PIPS.  Due to the change in the British rate, these cases will be "MS" and determined by the delegate, or through manual authority on PIPS only.

10.It will not be necessary to prepare a D408, or equivalent in these cases; the schedule produced for dual SP/EATS/COMP cases to record the changes to the PMF may be used as an authority provided each record on that schedule is endorsed with the consecutive number automatically produced by PIPS and is signed by the delegate determining the case, prior to transmission to Pension Payments.  All such cases can be identified from the manual schedules listed by the ALO2, ALO3 runs (i.e., group 100, 200) and the new British rates should be deducted from the examiners' entries on those schedules.

NOTE:All entries on these schedules must be in Australian dollars.

ADVICES

11.The Advices System will generate an advice in cases where a payment variation is made.  Examiners should action cases in the following manner:

Continuation Cases

12.Unless the total payment varies, the PIPS Advices screen should be accessed and production of an automatic advice suppressed.  The Advice Indicator on the Action Schedule should be set to "Z".

Variation Cases

13.Where a variation in total payment results the PIPS Advice screen should be accessed and the Suppress Income/Asset List Indicator set to "Y".  This will result in production of a variation advice with no income and asset details. The Advice Indicator on the Action Schedule should be set to "Y".

NCC Implications

14.This processing is scheduled for Saturday 3 August 1991.  Refer to Attachment C for details.  Please note that all States wish to have cases listed in file number order within groups of Composite/EATS and Other.

CONTACT OFFICER

15.The contact officer for this exercise is:

Glenys Bulters Telephone:(06) 289 6019 (Business Hours)

(06) 286 1339 (After Hours)

DAVID MACKRELL

ASSISTANT SECRETARY

PLANNING & MANAGEMENT

TIMETABLE FOR BRITISH DEVALUATION EFFECTIVE 22 AUGUST 1991

Processing Date:3 August 1991

RUNPURPOSE

RSPYAL01 — Listing of cases requiring manual action (Z cards in               CPP.BRITRVAL.CNTL(AL02RUN1)

RSPYAL02

RSPYAL03

RSPYAL04

OUTPUTS — Listing double spacing.

$PPBBSPR — Report of Service Pensioners with British DP.

The Benefits after hours contact officer: Glenys Bulters (06) 286 1339