External

Departmental Instruction

DATE OF ISSUE: 23 DECEMBER 1994

1995 WAR WIDOW/ERS TC1 CARD ISSUE - NSW &VIC 1995 WAR WIDOW/ERS TRANSPORT VOUCHER ISSUE – QLD TAPE WITH WAR WIDOW/ERS DETAILS - WA

1.INTRODUCTION

1.1 — The purpose of this Departmental Instruction is to provide information about the issue of the 1995 war widow/er transport concessions as follows:

the mailout of Transport Concession (TC1) cards and two vouchers to selected war widow/ers in NSW (which will be done on behalf of NSW CityRail)

the mailout of Transport Concession (TC1) cards and one voucher to selected war widow/ers in VIC (which will be done on behalf of the Victorian Public Transport Corporation)

the mailout of four transport vouchers to selected war widow/ers [and one voucher to each dependent child] in Qld (which will be done on behalf of the Queensland Rail)

the provision of a tape with details of selected war widow/ers in WA, which will be sent to the WA BO for the local issue of vouchers

all of which will occur in November/December 1994

1.2 — 1995 TC1 cards and vouchers will be sent by Central Office for the following:

all those war widow/ers in NSW, not on DSS Age Pension or DVA Service Pension

all those war widow/ers in VIC (except World War I war widow/ers), not on DSS Age Pension or DVA Service Pension

all those war widow/ers in Qld [and any dependent children], not on DSS Age Pension or DVA Service Pension

1.3 — 1995 Transport vouchers will be sent by WA BO for the following:

all those war widow/ers in WA, not on DSS Age Pension or DVA Service Pension

2.BACKGROUND

History of TC1 for War Widow/ers (Issue of 1993 cards - Nov 1992)

2.1 — In about November each year DVA has produced tapes with war widow/ers details. This information was used to personalise the transport concession card and/or voucher(s) for use in the following year. The transport concession cards and vouchers were then despatched to those war widow/ers on the tape.

2.2 — In the past, DVA (CO) arranged for the printing and personalising of transport concession cards and/or voucher(s) for war widow/ers in NSW, VIC and SA (excluding NT). QLD and WA had local arrangements in place, and there is no transport concession arrangement in TAS, NT or ACT.

Impact of Extension of Fringe Benefits from 1/4/93

2.3 — With the extension of fringe benefits from 1 April 1993, war widow/ers who are also DVA Service Pensioners or DSS Age Pensioners are entitled to receive a Pensioner Concession Card (PCC).

2.4 — These pensioners would receive duplicate concession cards and/or voucher(s) for NSW, VIC, QLD and WA.

2.5 — To alleviate this problem, DVA are liaising with DSS to identify war widow/ers on DSS Age Pension or DVA Service Pension to ensure DVA does not send a TC1 card and/or voucher(s) to them in future.

2.6 — DSS will send a 1995 PCC and vouchers to all those war widow/ers who are on DSS Age Pension. DVA will send a PCC and vouchers to all those war widow/ers who are on DVA Service Pension. Hence, DVA will send a TC1 and/or voucher(s) to all the remaining (selected) war widow/ers in those States.

3.TARGET POPULATION

(Rough estimate only)

	NSW	VIC	QLD	SA (incl NT)	WA	TAS	NT	TOTAL

WWs on DSS IS	20,000	14,500	9,500	4,500	4,000	2,500		55,000
WWs not on DSS IS	9,000	7,500	5,000	2,500	3,000	1,000		28,000
DVA Card for WWs	TC + 2 (CO)	TC + 1 (CO)	DTEC + 4	DTEC (Prior to 1994 a TC card was issued to WW by CO)	TC + 1 TRIP WA	NONE	NONE
PHB/ PCC Conc	TC + 2 (CO)	TC + 1	TC + 4	TC	TC + 1 TRIP WA	TC + 4 (Before the PCC was introduced, they received no vouchers)	TC

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3.1 — From 1 January 1994 all individuals who are in receipt of an income support pension from either DVA or DSS receive a Pensioner Concession Card (PCC). This includes those service pensioners who are also in receipt of a war widow/ers pension. There are approximately 55,000 war widow/ers who also receive either a DVA Service Pension or a DSS Age Pension.

3.2 — The remaining 28,000 war widow/ers do not receive income support pensions and are therefore excluded from access to the PCC.

3.3 — For NSW, VIC, WA and QLD it is necessary to identify those war widow/ers on DSS Age Pension or DVA Service Pension, and exclude them from the mailouts.

3.4 — This information was identified through a data match exercise with DSS (ie when DSS did their PCC data extract they provided to DVA a tape with all war widow/ers who will receive a PCC from DSS. DVA incorporated this data against war widow/ers on the system. The war widow/ers not in receipt of a PCC are those selected clients targetted in this mailout.

3.5 — War widow/ers eligible for a PCC will be the subject of a separate Departmental Instruction.

3.6 — The number of war widow/ers who will be issued with a Transport concession card and/or voucher(s) by DVA is:

NSWapproximately 9,000 (although an extra 5,000 cards will be printed to take into account the reissues/new grants for the year)

VICapproximately 7,500 (although an extra 5,000 cards will be printed to take into account the reissues/new grants for the year)

QLDapproximately 5,000 (although an extra 5,000 vouchers will be printed to take into account the reissues/new grants for the year)

WAapproximately 3,000 records on the tape

4.REQUIREMENTS

To issue a TC1 and two vouchers to selected war widow/ers in NSW
To issue a TC1 and one voucher to selected war widow/ers in VIC
To issue a four transport vouchers to selected war widow/ers [and one voucher for each dependent child] in QLD
To identify selected war widow/ers in WA for the local issue of the card and voucher

5.TIMINGS

NSW, VIC, QLD and WA-Late November/Early December 1994.

6.PROCESSING RUN

6.1 — The processing run will be done on the weekend of 26/27 November 1994.

7.FORMAT/PROCESSING

NSW and VIC

7.1 — Layout of cards for NSW and VIC will be similar to the 1994 cards. The position of personalising information (eg name and address) will not alter.

7.2 — The only things that change are the:

date (from "1994" to "1995")
colour - to Blue (Pantone 291C)
minor wording changes

7.3 — All the above changes were cleared by the relevant State Transport Authority.

QLD

7.4 — The layout of the vouchers for Qld will be identical to the QLD PCC vouchers (including the colour). The position of the personalising information (eg name and address) will be the same as the PCC voucher positioning.

WA

7.5 — Because the card and voucher are being issued locally, all that will be required is the name and address details. No file numbers will be provided on the tape as the card and voucher will be issued using sticky labels on the front of the envelope. File numbers will, however, be required on the schedule listing.

Streaming of tape output

7.6 — To facilitate printing and insertion of the appropriate cards for each State, clients will need to be streamed onto different tapes for processing by the mailing house contractor. Production tapes for war widow/ers cards will be based on the State of the pensioner's residential address, not the Branch Office administering the payment.

Special Register Clients

7.7 — For NSW, VIC and QLD, a separate file on each tape is to be prepared for special register cases. POLK will print cards and/or voucher(s) for the cases in NSW, VIC and QLD and send them to the appropriate DVA Branch Office.

7.8 — For WA, a separate file on the tape will be prepared for special register cases. The tape will be sent to WA BO who will organise (locally) for it to be issued.

Overseas clients

7.9 — Clients with an overseas address are not eligible to receive a card, and must therefore not be selected by the program.

7.10 — Clients resident in PNG are distinguished by the postcode '0019'. All other overseas residents are identified by the postcode '0099'.

7.11 — Therefore, anyone with a CDB postcode commencing with two leading zeroes (00) will be excluded.

8.System Requirements

New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland

8.1 — Processing/procedure will be the same as last year, except that we need to cull clients on DSS Age Pension or DVA Service Pension.

Western Australia

8.2 — This information was not required last year.

Record Sequence

8.3 — All records will be output to tapes in Australia Post National Sort Plan sequence, except for the Special Register tapes which will be in institution order.

9.PRINTING, PERSONALISING AND MAIL PROCESSING

9.1 — Printing of base stock, personalising of stock and mailing of cards/vouchers for NSW, VIC and QLD will be done by RL POLK & CO PTY LTD. Tapes will be provided by DVA with the data to print and personalise the card and/or voucher(s).

9.2 — Artwork will be provided by DVA for the printing of base stock. Tapes will be provided by DVA with the data to personalise the cards/vouchers.

9.3 — It is expected that lodgement will occur in week beginning 5 December 1994.

Surplus Blank Card Stock

9.4 — For NSW, blank card stock will be sent to Brian McFarlane - Concession Fares Office of State Rail.

9.5 — For VIC, blank card stock will be sent to Wal Grassham - DVA Victorian Branch Office.

9.6 — For QLD, blank voucher stock will be sent to Dave Adams - Queensland Rail.

Quality Control - Production Runs at Contractor

9.7 — Because there will be 3 different types of stationery, samples of the final production output will be inspected by the Communications, Operations and Review (formerly Standards and Control) Project Officer, on-site or via a faxed set of photocopies.

Machine Damaged or Incompletely Addressed Cards

9.8 — POLK will reprint and despatch 1995 cards damaged in processing. POLK will send incompletely addressed damaged cards to respective Branch Offices for manual issue.

Schedule Reports

9.9 — A schedule listing all cases for which cards were produced will be printed for each of the relevant Branch Offices (each BO will receive two; one for Income Support, one for VAS/VAN).

9.10 — A separate schedule will be sent to the transport authorities in NSW, VIC and QLD. The schedules for the bulk issue will be in alphabetic order. The schedules for the special register cases will be in institution then alphabetic order.

9.11 — The schedules are to be archived for one year to permit recall if required.

Manual Issues - New Grants and Replacements

9.12 — In NSW, new issues and replacement of cards will be handled by the Concession Fares Office of State Rail.

9.13 — In VIC, new issues and replacement of cards will be handled by the DVA Victorian Branch Office.

9.14 — In QLD, new issues and replacement of cards will be handled by Queensland Rail.

9.15 — Only those war widow/ers not in receipt of a PCC (ie those war widow/ers not in receipt of a DVA Service Pension or a DSS Age Pension) will be eligible for war widow/er transport card and/or voucher(s).

CONTACT OFFICER

The contact officer for this exercise is Lisa Ross, she can be contacted on

(06) 289 6404.

DAVID MACKRELL

ASSISTANT SECRETARY

INCOME SUPPORT BRANCH