C46/2005 War widows and widowers transferring from a Centrelink payment to an income support supplement

Purpose

The purpose of this instruction is to:

•     restate the procedures for a streamlined process for Centrelink payees who have recently been granted a war widow's pension (WWP) and who wish to claim a DVA income support supplement (ISS); and
•     introduce a new form to assist the process.

Background

Since March 1995, DVA has been able to pay ISS to eligible war widows and widowers.  In June 2000, procedures were introduced to streamline the procedures between DVA and Centrelink when granting WWP and ISS to a Centrelink client.  This included:

• introducing a new claim form, D2663 Claim for Pension by a Widow, Widower or other Dependant of a Deceased Veteran, which formalised the claim for ISS; and
• streamlining the clearance procedures and Centrelink clearance forms.

Approach from Legacy

Earlier this year, Mr Ian Wills, the chairman of the Legacy Club of Canberra, approached DVA with a request to simplify the process to stop these widows having to provide full details of their residential and financial details to DVA because Centrelink already has them.

The old procedure

The following procedures are used by the SOs where a widow or widower claims ISS as part of their claim for WWP (using form D2663) and are identified as receiving a Centrelink payment:

• WWP is granted and file is referred to IS section to process the ISS claim;
• grant ISS based on information obtained from Centrelink as part of the initial clearance process;

• a Statement of Circumstances form is sent following grant of ISS or the end of the bereavement period, whichever is the later to collect up to date personal and financial details.

Centrelink information

Anecdotal evidence is that the income and asset information requested from Centrelink as part of the WWP clearance is not always sent to DVA and is not timely.

The new process

To address these issues, the following procedures should now be used:

Step

Details

Step 1

Where grant of WWP does not automatically grant ISS:

• If person is not receiving DVA income support pension, hold arrears pending Centrelink clearance.
• From WWP/ISS claim form (form D2663), establish grounds for ISS eligibility (ie age, invalidity, dependent children, or pensioner partner).

Step 2

The claim should be registered in CMS as an ISS New Claim case.

Step 3

Send the new form D2663A to Revesby Centrelink under the Certificate of Disclosure Agreement to obtain details such as:

• residential and income and asset details

• whether there are dependent children in the assessment

• date last reviewed
• eligibility for telephone allowance (TA) – to determine if any TA arrears are payable.

Step 4

Once information from step 3 is available, put into payment using PIPS.

If further information is required prior to processing the case, eg more details are required to data collect a managed investment or if Centrelink has not reviewed the pensioner for sometime (ie this information is asked for in Step 3) the claimant should be contacted by telephone in the first instance wherever possible.  This is considered a good work practice and often the specific information is easily obtained, saving the person from a more complex departmental review and any delay in the commencement of their income support payment.

Step 5

The grant advice must contain full obligations (a copy of You and Your Pension should be included) and full income and asset details.

Step 6

If the decision-maker determines that a full review is required, this should be triggered using the Departmental Review System (DRS) to initiate it.  This will issue a Statement of Circumstances (form D2589) to review personal and income and asset details.

Note:  If ISS is granted during the Centrelink bereavement period, the review should not be done until the end of the bereavement period.

The clearance process does not change

These amended procedures only relate to the data collection of personal and financial details for the purposes of granting ISS - they do not in any way amend the clearance process.

With automated clearances, DVA will send an automated advice of grant of WWP and ISS, which will result in the cancellation of the primary Centrelink income support payment and generate an automated advice of debt amount to DVA.  This will be automatically offset against any WWP and ISS arrears being held.  So Centrelink will continue to let the automated clearance process take care of cancellations of primary income support payments and debt calculation and DVA SOs should do likewise.

New form D2663A

The new form D2663A, Transfer Details - War Widows and Widowers transferring from a Centrelink payment to DVA income support supplement is available via DVA Forms.  Here is a hyperlink to the DVA website:  /http://internet-mirror/clientforms/

It should be noted that this form is for DVA staff and NOT to be completed by the war widow or widower.

Claim for WWP – form D2663

Minor changes in respect of claiming ISS are being considered to form D2663 Claim for Pension by a Widow, Widower or other Dependant of a Deceased Veteran to further simplify this process.

NO contact officer

The contact in National Office for this instruction is:

• Robyn Del Casale, Assistant Director, Business Improvement & Monitoring, Income Support.