DATE OF ISSUE:  8 SEPTEMBER 1995

SEPTEMBER 1995 QUARTERLY ADVICES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction...............................................................2

Associated Departmental Instructions............................................2

Pensioners For Whom An Advice Will Be Generated.................................2

Components for the September Quarterly Advice Mailout..............................3

Pension Indexation - Pensions, Rent Assistance and Rent Thresholds Indexations.....3

Quarterly Advice Processing......................................................3

Client Impact...................................................................................3

On-line Financial Institutions' Reassessment.................................3

On-line Shares 'Global' Reassessment.........................................................4

MI 'Global' Reassessment..............................................4

Advices - General..........................................................5

ADP Processing.....................................................5

Timetable..........................................................5

Holding of Daily Advices................................................5

Despatch of Quarterly Advices...........................................6

Reprint of Selected Advices.............................................6

Liaison with Ferntree Computer Centre (NCC)................................6

Contact numbers.....................................................6

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 September Quarterly Advice mailout will incorporate the following events for pay-day 28 September 1995:

.pension indexation;

.rent assistance and rent threshold indexation;

.financial institutions reassessment;

.shares reassessment;

.managed investment reassessment; and

3.  The reassessment processing run and Advice production will be conducted on the weekend of 9/10 September 1995.  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.

Associated Departmental Instructions

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 September 1995 Quarterly Advices System Rules and Components, which contains details of paragraph wording.

6.   The payment processing is scheduled from Friday evening 8 September till Sunday evening 10 September 1995.  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.

8.  The estimated numbers of advices for this run are as follows:

	NSW	VIC	QLD	SA	WA	TAS	TOTAL
SP Joint assessment (less than maximum)	27 070	21 822	16 295	9 928	9 863	4 134	89 112
SP Single assessment (less than maximum)	4 722	3 449	2 705	1 526	1 596	122	14 110
ISS (less than ceiling rate)	4 260	3 288	2 463	1 141	981	402	12 535
State Total	36 052	28 559	21 463	12 595	12 440	4 658	TOTAL115 767

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 tape for NSW and VIC will be printed at Leigh Mardon (Sydney).  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 September 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 September 1995.

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

28 September 1995, the exception is rent assistance.  Whilst the maximum rates of rent assistance will be increased, the rent thresholds (ie. the minimum amount of rent a person must pay to qualify for rent assistance) are also being indexed on 28 September 1995.  Indexation of the rent thresholds means that service pensioners and income support supplement pensioners with 'non-saved' rent assistance may have their rent assistance reduced or cancelled.

Quarterly Advice Processing

13.  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 September 1995 Quarterly Advices System Rules & Components document and Mock up samples.

Client Impact

14.  Approximately 115,000 pensioner households will receive a quarterly advice regarding indexation.

On-line Financial Institutions 'Global' Reassessment

15.  A 'Global' reassessment run will be conducted for pay-day 28 September 1995.  There may be increases, decreases or continuations as a result of financial institutions reassessment.

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

Quarterly Advice Processing - Financial Institutions

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

18.  The range of paragraphs, the circumstances under which these will be applied and the paragraph wording are shown in the September 1995 Quarterly Advices System Rules & Components document and Mock up samples.

On-line Shares 'Global' Reassessment

19.  A 'Global' reassessment run will be conducted for pay-day 28 September 1995.  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.

20.  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.

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

Quarterly Advice Processing - Shares

22.  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.

23.  The range of paragraphs, the circumstances under which these will be applied and the paragraph wording are shown in the September 1995 Quarterly Advices System Rules & Components document and Mock up samples.

MI 'Global' Reassessment

24.  A 'Global' reassessment run will be conducted for pay-day 28 September 1995.  There may be increases, decreases or continuations as a result of the reassessment.

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

Quarterly Advice Processing - Managed Investments

26.  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.

27.  The range of paragraphs, the circumstances under which these will be applied and the paragraph wording are shown in the September 1995 Quarterly Advices System Rules & Components document and Mock-up samples.

Advices - General

ADP Processing

28.  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

29.  Key time frames of advices are summarised below. The first processing run will begin on the evening of  Friday 8 September 1995.

Holding of Daily Advices

30.  Cases processed in advance for day 1 of 28 September 1995 should have the daily advice despatched prior to the Quarterly Advice being sent.

31.  Daily payment advices produced after the processing run on 9/10 September 1995 for pay period 7 (28 September 1995), 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 September 1995 will receive their daily advice after the quarterly advice rather than in advance of it.

32.  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 September 1995.  General pensions processing should continue unabated but should be submitted for the subsequent pay day ie. pay period 8 - 12 October 1995.

Despatch of Quarterly Advices

33.  The quarterly advices will be progressively lodged with Australia Post by the mailing houses in Sydney and Adelaide, during the period 15 September 1994 to 22 September 1995.  As soon as each State's advices have been lodged, the Project Officer will advise the appropriate State contact officer.

Reprint of Selected Advices

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

Liaison with Ferntree Computer Centre (NCC)

35.  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

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

PAUL MCBOW

A/ DIRECTOR

COMMUNICATIONS, OPERATIONS AND REVIEW