Approved Care Organisations (ACO) 007-01060000

An ACO is an organisation which provides or co-ordinates residential care services to young people in Australia and has received approval status from Services Australia.

ACOs are agencies which:

• assist homeless youth
• care for children with intellectual or physical disabilities
• accommodate young refugees to help them adjust to Australian society
• arrange pre-adoptive foster care
• provide long term or permanent care for young people with a disability

For an organisation to become eligible for Family Tax Benefit (FTB) they must first receive ACO status. Applications are made by completing the ‘Application for Approved Care Organisation status (FA083), which is emailed through to the ACO processing team.

Services Australia may withdraw approval where:

• the ACO wants to relinquish its status
• no FTB payments have been made for 12 months

Organisations enquiring about approval or withdrawal of approval, must be referred to ACO processing team.

An ACO may be eligible for FTB for a child if the child is:

• under 16 years, or
• a senior secondary school child aged 16-19 years, and
• a client of the organisation, and
• an Australian resident

To determine FTB eligibility, ACOs must complete the ‘Approved care organisation - Admission, transfer or discharge spreadsheet when a young person is admitted, transferred or discharged from your care’, which is emailed through to them once approval status has been granted.

ACOs are eligible for base rate of FTB Part A per child, regardless of the child’s age and in some circumstances may be eligible to receive Energy Supplement A, see Table 1 > Step 15 in Energy Supplement for Family Tax Benefit (FTB) recipients.

ACOs may also be eligible for the Double Orphan Pension (DOP) if they have care of a DOP child and the child is an FTB child.

An ACO is recorded on the system as an organisation. Children in care are linked to the ACO in the same way a child is linked to an individual customer. If a child leaves care of the organisation, the ACO is no longer eligible for FTB, and they must notify about these changes as soon as they occur.

ACOs cannot be paid:

• FTB Part A supplement
• bereavement payment of FTB
• FTB part B, or
• single income family supplement

FTB is also not payable to an ACO where an individual is eligible for the child, or where the child is receiving a payment in their own right.

An ACO cannot be issued a Health Care Card (HCC) for a foster child in their care.

A Low Income Health Care Card (LIC) may be granted to the child where FTB is not being paid to an individual. If the child residing with the ACO is an FTB child of a person who cannot be paid FTB for the child because of the income test, the child is not entitled to a LIC. See Low Income Health Care Card (LIC).

ACOs receive fortnightly rate letters detailing the children currently in care and the FTB payment paid for the current period.

Quarterly reports can be issued to ACOs, who may request an ACO Entitlement Report (ACORPT) via email. The report will be sent in a PDF format and includes a statement of the ACO’s entitlement for a specified period. The following information is included:

• names of the children in care
• date of birth (DOB) of the children in care
• the period the children were in care for during the period of the report
• number of days the child has been current for
• the type of benefit paid for each child in care
• calculated entitlement total for each benefit paid
• total number of children in care for the period of the report (per benefit)