Youth Allowance at pending status (YAL/PSA) and dependent siblings 108-02010120

If assessing a customer’s claim or attempting to restore payment and parental income reduces the customer’s Youth Allowance (YA) rate to $0, check for any dependent sibling in the family pool who has been rejected or cancelled Parental Income Too High (PIH) in the previous 13 weeks. Reassessment of the sibling’s claim or payment may be required.

Are there any siblings with a status of REJ-PIH or CAN-PIH in the previous 13 weeks?

• Yes, go to Step 2
• No, where there are no siblings who have recently claimed or cancelled, the customer’s claim must be manually rejected PIH. This will override the Pending Sibling Assessment (PSA) status and should only be used where other siblings have not claimed or have advised they do not intend to claim. Go to Step 9

Contact the sibling by phone to ask if they would like their rejected claim/ cancelled payment reassessed, as they may now be entitled to payment.

If contact is unsuccessful, for:

• claims, record a Note/DOC on the sibling’s record with details of contact attempts made and manually reject the customer’s claim, go to Step 9, or
• restorations, finalise the customer’s restoration activity, this will likely result in the status changing to CAN-PIH. Record details of this decision in a Note/DOC. Procedure ends here

If contact is successful:

• discuss the sibling’s circumstances to confirm if their details have changed since they last claimed or were on payment.
• make any relevant updates to the record

Does the sibling want their claim/payment reassessed?

• Yes, if the sibling’s YA was:
• cancelled PIH, go to Step 3
• rejected PIH, go to Step 4
• No,
• Record a Note/DOC on the sibling’s record with details of the discussion and the sibling’s choice to not have their claim/payment reassessed
• Manually reject the customer's claim, go to Step 9, or
• Finalise the customer’s restoration activity, this will likely result in the status changing to CAN-PIH
• Record details of this decision in the claim/restoration finalisation Note/DOC
• Procedure ends here

Based on the discussion with the sibling, can their payment be restored and is YA payable from the date of cancellation?

• Yes,
• Finalise the activity on the customer’s record, claims will go to Pending Sibling Assessment (PSA)
• An activity will ripple to the sibling’s record to restore the sibling’s payment. Procedure ends here
• No,
• Advise the sibling that due to a change in family circumstances, they may now be entitled; but a new claim will be required. For parental income to be assessed correctly against the family pool, the sibling claim needs to be processed within the PSA review period of the customer’s claim. Procedure ends here

For parental income to be assessed correctly against the family pool, the sibling’s claim needs to be processed within the PSA review period of the customer’s claim.

If siblings have different start dates, the latest start date must be coded in the Manual Start Date field on the Start Date Calculator (NDC) screen for any/all siblings where the Calculated Start Date defaults to an earlier date. See Resources for examples.

Only Service Officers appropriately skilled in the claim type can reassess the rejected sibling’s claim.

• Staff who are appropriately skills in the sibling new claim type and are scheduled for processing, go to Step 5
• All other staff, create a Fast Note requesting reassessment of the claim
  If the sibling claim is:
• an Australian Apprentice claim, select Auto Text option > Students, ABSTUDY & Apprentices > Claims - Apprentices > Reassess Rejected Apprentice Claim, transfer to region code NCA
• a student claim, select Auto Text option > Students, ABSTUDY & Apprentices > Claims - Students > Reassess Rejected Student Claim, transfer to region code SNN
• a jobseeker claim, refer to the appropriate local service centre who will reassess the sibling claim. Select Auto Text option > Generic > Claims > Reassess Rejected Claim, transfer to region code JCS

Procedure ends here.

If the sibling claim was:

• an Australian Apprentice claim, go to Step 6
• a job seeker claim, go to Step 8
• a student claim, go to Step 7

Check if the sibling’s Apprenticeship Identification number is current. Note: only Service Officers with Apprenticeships Data Management System (ADMS) access can conduct this check.

Is the Apprenticeship Identification Number for the sibling current?

• Yes, go to Step 7
• No, claim cannot be reassessed until the number is current. Record a Note/DOC on the customer and sibling records with these details. Do not record information that will breach a person’s privacy. Procedure ends here

• Make a note of sibling information previously recorded on the Start Date Calculator (NDC) table
• Re-index the sibling's claim
• Code NDC table with details from the previous claim
• Align the Entitlement Period End Day (EPED) of the sibling claim to the customer's EPED to minimise the risk of debts being created.
• Assess the claim as usual, see Assessing and coding student and Australian Apprentice claims for Youth Allowance (YA)

Does the reassessment result in YA being granted?

• Yes, check both records. If any incorrect arrears payments have been issued, stop the payment. Procedure ends here
• No, go to Step 9

Sibling claim is to be reassessed.

Re-index the sibling's claim then, see Processing Youth Allowance (YA) (job seeker) claims.

When a job seeker claim is re-indexed, the Online Participation workflow will display a status of completed or required. Regardless of the status, the workflow must be re-run before the claim determination to re-activate job seeker registration and determine RapidConnect status, if appropriate.

Does the reassessment result in YA being granted?

• Yes, check both records. If any incorrect arrears payments have been issued, stop the payment. Procedure ends here
• No, go to Step 9

• Go to the Benefit Action (BA) screen
• Select Add to make a new entry in the Benefit Action table and complete the following fields:
• Benefit Type Code: 'YAL'
• Benefit Action: 'REJ' – Reject
• Reason: 'PIH' – Parental Income too High
• Finalise the claim. If assessing claims for more than one sibling and parental income is too high for any of them to be payable, repeat this step for each sibling
• Record details in the finalisation Note, including details of any conversation that took place and the reason for rejecting the claim
• Repeat this step for each sibling

Procedure ends here.

When a YA claim is finalised for a dependent customer whose rate is reduced to $0 under the Parental Income Test (PIT), the claim will have a status of Pending Sibling Assessment (PSA) until the end of the working date after the claim was processed. Once the PSA review period ends, the claim will reject Parental Income Too High (PIH) if there are no changes to parental income or the family pool which make the customer payable.

In some circumstances the automatic rejection fails and the benefit status will remain as YAL/PSA. This results in the creation of a new claim (NCL) activity with a Review Reason: 'YAL Pending Sibling NCL Action'.

Check the customer's record to determine:

• if at the time of claim, there are any siblings in the family pool or a sibling who has submitted a new claim, and
• the combined parental income

Is the customer eligible for YA?

• Yes,
• Re-index the claim , then see, Assessing and coding student and Australian Apprentice claims for Youth Allowance (YA)
• Procedure ends here
• No, go to Step 3

If the customer is not eligible, reject YA:

Process Direct

• Cancel the NCL activity from the Activity List (AL) screen
• Go to the Benefit Action (BA) screen
• Select Add to make a new entry in the Benefit Action table. Complete the following fields:
• Benefit Type Code: YAL
• Benefit Action: REJ – Reject
• Reason: PIH – Parental Income too High
• Date of Effect: as appropriate
• Select Save
• Key the Receipt Date, Channel and Service Reason. Note: Seelct the most relevant Service Reason
• Select Assess and address any errors/warnings
• Select Assess again
• Select Finish. Record details of the update
• Select Finalise
• Record the reason for decision in a Note

Customer First

• Select the NCL activity from the Activity List (AL) screen and cancel the activity
• Go to the Benefit Action (BA) screen and complete the following fields:
• Service Reason: YAL - Youth Allowance
• Action: REJ - Reject
• Reason: PIH - Parental Income too High
• Effect Date: as appropriate
• Source: as appropriate
• Receipt Date: as appropriate
• Go to Activity Results (AR)
• Do not inhibit letter
• Finalise the activity
• DOC the record

Procedure ends here.