C37/2002 Override Facility for Recording Lump Sum Advance in DMRS.

Purpose

The purpose of this Departmental Instruction is to provide procedural information with regards to processing Lump Sum Advance requests for clients who have recently transferred from Centrelink.

Background

To be eligible for a Lump Sum Advance (LSA) a client must have been receiving a pension from DVA or Centrelink continuously during the three months prior to the advance being paid.

The Debt Management System (DMRS) has system controls in place to reject an LSA request if the client has a continuous payment history of less than three months recorded in IPS.

Although clients transferring from Centrelink may actually meet the three-month eligibility criteria, IPS will not have the appropriate history until they have been with DVA for 3 months.  Therefore, DMRS does not allow users to record a LSA request for these clients.

System Changes

To allow for the recording of requests for LSA for Centrelink transferees, an extra field 'LSA Override check' has been added to the 'Lump Sum Advance Details' under the Add Debts folder.

If a new LSA request is created with this override field selected, the details are also recorded as a comment within the transaction folder indicating that this override facility has been used.

The override facility only operates to bypass the requirement for three month's continuous payment, and has not changed or overridden any of the other system edits currently in place.

When to Use this Facility

The override facility should only be used for clients transferring from Centrelink who meet all of the other LSA eligibility requirements.  It should not be used as a way to bypass system edits so that clients who are not eligible can be granted LSA.

NO Contact Details

Any queries should be directed to Danielle Cunningham, who can be contacted on 02 6289 6715.