DATE OF ISSUE 9 June 1993
JUNE 1993 QUARTERLY ADVICES
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction...............................................................2
Associated Departmental Instructions............................................2
Regulation 45A certification...................................................2
Quarterly Advices..........................................................2
Telephone Allowance - Quarterly Payment........................................3
Quarterly Advice processing.............................................3
Rates of TA payment..................................................4
Indexation of Income and Asset Free Areas.......................................4
Quarterly Advice processing.............................................4
Annual Asset Review Reduction Cases...........................................4
Treatment Benefit Eligibility Changes............................................5
ADP Processing...........................................................5
Timetable................................................................5
Advices..................................................................6
Holding of daily advices................................................6
Despatch of Quarterly Advices...........................................6
Reprint of Selected Advices.............................................6
Liaison with Ferntree Computer Centre (NCC)......................................6
Contact numbers...........................................................6
Advices Paragraph Contents..................................................7
June Quarterly Advice - Mock-up...............................................8
Non-personalised notification of Telephone Allowance sample..........................10
Introduction
The indexation of the income and asset free areas, effective 8 July 1993, and the quarterly payment of Telephone Allowance (TA) is scheduled for the weekend 19/20 June 1993. Quarterly Advices will be produced for certain pensioners affected by these runs.
2.Certain service pensioners, disability pensioners not on Service Pension (SP) but eligible for TA, and war widow/ers eligible for TA, will receive a Quarterly Advice letter containing the appropriate details for the relevant event(s).
3.The major reassessment program ("BAL") will be run to reassess all SP cases.
4.In addition, all pensioners who have taxable pensions on their tax database record (with no tax deductions recorded) will be issued, separately, a Statement of Service Pension and Allowances (to be called a "Tax Statement").
Associated Departmental Instructions
5.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 June 1993 Quarterly Advices System Rules and Components, which contains details of paragraph wording.
6.The entire processing is scheduled from Friday evening 18 June till Sunday 20 June 1993. 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 State Finance Branches.
Quarterly Advices
8.Where a service pension assessment is a joint assessment (ie married), a single joint advice will be produced. Not all pensioners will receive an advice on this occasion. Advices will be issued for the following circumstances:
.service pension varied as a result of the indexation of the income and asset free areas;
.service pensioners not receiving a Tax Statement but eligible for Telephone Allowance;
.Disability Pensioners (DP) pensioners without SP eligible for TA;
.War Widow/ers without SP eligible for TA.
The estimated numbers of advices for this run are as follows:
War widow/ers with TA — 67000
DP only clients with TA — 4000
Asset-affected service pensioners (AFA increased)4800
Single income-tested service pensioners (IFA increased)12500
Service pensioners with TA who don't get a tax statement and
aren't affected by IFA/AFA — negligible
TOTAL88300
Telephone Allowance - Quarterly Payment
9.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.
Quarterly Advice processing
10.Telephone Allowance will be paid to eligible pensioners for pay-day 8 July 1993.
11.All service pensioners eligible for Telephone Allowance will be automatically checked to determine whether a Tax Statement has been produced. Where a Tax Statement has been produced for a client, no "Telephone Allowance only" quarterly advice will be produced. Instead a non-personalised Telephone Allowance insert will be included with the Tax Statement and despatched to that client. This will remove the necessity to send out "Telephone Allowance only" advices to most service pensioners.
12.Cases where no Tax Statement will be produced but which are eligible for Telephone Allowance will have a Telephone Allowance quarterly advice. This includes pensioners receiving Group Certificates, manual Tax Statement or non taxable pensions.
13.Service pensioners assessed under a manual method of assessment (eg. War Widow/ers with service pension, Hardship etc) who are eligible for TA, and not receiving a Tax Statement, will have an advice generated regarding TA payment. Branch Offices will still be required to manually process service pension reassessment, based on indexation of income and asset free areas, and provide the appropriate advice. A separate Departmental instruction will be issued regarding the issue of Tax Statements.
Rates of TA payment
14.The three rates of TA payment are the same as for the 1 April 1993 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);
.The Half Base Rate is $26.40 pa ($6.60 per quarter).
15.The quarterly TA payment amount will be shown on a person's payment advice, in the paragraph immediately following the payment details box.
Indexation of Income and Asset Free Areas
16.The indexation of the income and asset free areas will result in a service pension increase for single income-affected service pensioners on less than maximum rate and all asset-affected pensioners, from pay-day 8 July 1993.
Quarterly Advice processing
17.All service pensioners whose rate of service pension increases will receive a quarterly advice containing a paragraph covering the IFA/AFA increase. These advices will also contain abbreviated financial obligations (not full obligations) and will NOT include an income/asset list.
Annual Asset Review Reduction Cases
18.There will be no special paragraphs in the quarterly advices relating to Annual Asset Review Reduction Cases.
19.Those cases pre-processed (ie set to determined stage as an advance case for pay period 27) will be processed automatically. An additional day one interface will be run prior to the application of the new IFA/AFA rates on the weekend 19/20 June1993. Daily advices produced as a result of this interface run and received in Branches on Monday 21 June 1993, should be despatched before the quarterly advices to ensure t — hat pensioners who have had pension reductions because of asset reviews processed for pay-day 8 July will receive their daily advice before the quarterly advice rather than after it.
20.Any Annual Asset Review Reduction cases processed after the weekend 19/20 June 1993 should be held by Branch Offices until confirmation is received from the Quarterly Advices Project Manager in Central Office to release daily advices. This will ensure that pensioners who have asset reductions processed for pay-day 8 July will receive their daily advice after the quarterly advice rather than in advance of it.
Treatment Benefit Eligibility Changes
21.Any cases which have a treatment eligibility change ie: a gain or loss of eligibility, or have a period of grace set as a result of the indexation and/or annual asset review, will have a quarterly advice printed by the NCC and sent to Branch Offices. These advices will NOT contain any reference to Health Care Cards or periods of grace. Branch Offices will need to determine whether additional manual advice is required regarding the treatment eligibility change e.g. notification of period of grace commencing.
ADP Processing
22.Detailed information regarding ADP Processing has been 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
23.Key timeframes are summarised below. The first of the processing runs will begin on the evening of Friday 18 June.
DateEvent
Fri 18 June Cut-off for payperiod 26 (24 June), at usual time.
Fri 18 June Day 1 interface run for payperiod 27 (8 July)
Fri 18 June BAL re-assessment run; TA & Quarterly
to Sun 20 June Advices processing runs.
Mon 21 June — Daily advices produced from today to be held till Quarterly advices despatched (except for those cases determined prior to the run e.g. Asset Review cases).
Mon 21 June to — Examiner action on manual schedules for
cut-off for pay 27 — Service Pensioners,War Widow/ers & Disability Pensioners.
Mon 21 June to 2 July — Quarterly Advices progressively lodged with Australia Post from 21 June to 2 July
Advices
Holding of daily advices
24.Daily payment advices produced for pay period 27 (8 July 1993) after the weekend 19/20 June 1993, 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 pay-day 8 July will receive their daily advice after the quarterly advice rather than in advance of it. Only those Asset Review reduction cases determined prior to the processing weekend should have the daily advices released before the release of the quarterly advices.
Despatch of Quarterly Advices
25.The quarterly advices will be progressively lodged with Australia Post by the mailing house in Canberra, during the period 21 June to 2 July. As soon as each State's advices have been lodged, the CO Project Manager will advise the appropriate Branch's contact officer.
Reprint of Selected Advices
26.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)
27.The Veterans Services Applications Section 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
28.Any enquiries should be directed to Trevor Astle in Policy Development & Implementation Section, on (06) 289 6386. Facsimile messages should be sent to
(06) 289 6553.
HARRY STEPHEN
ASSISTANT SECRETARY
INCOME SUPPORT
Attachment 1
Advices Paragraph Contents
This attachment summarises the sequencing and contents of paragraphs to be used in the June 1993 advices
Sequencing of paragraphs
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
Opening paragraph — ALL
Contents paragraphs:-
. IFA/AFA paragraph — IF APPROPRIATE
Payment paragraph and 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
June Quarterly Advice - Mock-up
SERVICE PENSIONER COUPLE
LESS MAX RATE AND TA
BRANCH OFFICE
Centennial Plaza
280 Elizabeth Street
Sydney NSW 2000
P — ostal 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 residents: 008 257251
21 June 1993
Your file number is
NX123456
Dear Mr and Mrs CITIZEN
This letter gives you details of your current pension payment from Veterans' Affairs.
Changes to the Income Free Area and Assets Free Area
The income and asset limits ("free areas") for service pension have been changed in line with movements in the consumer price index. Your pension rate has therefore increased.
Payment Details
The amount of pension you receive each fortnight is set out below. Payment at this rate will be made on 8 July 1993.
PAYMENTS TO (JOHN CITIZEN) and (SARAH B CITIZEN)
Disability pension at 80% rate 173.52
Service pension 150.20 150.20
Pharmaceutical Allowance 2.60 2.60
TOTAL FORTNIGHTLY PAYMENT $326.32 $152.80
Telephone Allowance payment
Your quarterly Telephone Allowance of $6.60 each will be paid to you on 8 July 1993 in addition to that fortnight's pension payment. 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 asset test at less than the maximum rate. You must tell the Department within 21 days if you acquire new assets or if your combined income excluding Veterans' Affairs pension rises above (variable 3) a fortnight.
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. 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 included when sending this letter. If this is the case, we will be sending you 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,
G K Stonehouse
Deputy Commissioner as
Delegate of the Secretary
Attachment 3
Non-personalised notification of Telephone Allowance sample
This will be a 1/3 A4 size leaflet similar to that shown below:
TELEPHONE ALLOWANCE
The next payment of your Telephone Allowance will be made on 8 July 1993.
Telephone Allowance is payable quarterly at the following rates:
World War 1 rate (only for Veterans) $41.30
General Rate$13.20
Married Rate (each)$ 6.60
Remember, you must inform us if you cease to be a telephone subscriber.