DATE OF ISSUE: 25 JANUARY 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 21 February 1991. The exchange rate will vary from $A2.20 to $A2.54 to one Pound Sterling (British pension rates charts are at Attachment B). 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 2 February 1991, in groups made up of the following:
Group Content Group 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. The pay period, namely 43, for the effective date (21 February 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 21 February 1991.
CONTROL CARDS
8.Control card formats for computer runs are at Attachment A.
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
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
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
This processing is scheduled for Saturday 2 February 1991.
CONTACT OFFICER
The contact officers for this exercise are:
Glenys Bulters Telephone(06) 289 6019 (Business Hours)
Ken Stewart(06) 282 4794 (After Hours)
DON FAGET
ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY
PLANNING & MANAGEMENT