Child leaves customer's care/custody 102-05050020

Generally, when a child leaves a customer's care long-term or permanently, the customer stops being entitled to family assistance, Paid Parental Leave payments and ancillary benefits for the child. Their entitlement to income support payments may also be affected. The gaining carer of the child may become eligible for payments.

Customers must tell Services Australia if a child leaves their care, even if another person is expected to claim for the child.

Since 1 July 2010, a mutual customer can notify either Centrelink or Child Support of changes to their care arrangements. The agency receiving the information will make the care determination and the care information will be transferred to the other agency for the assessment of family assistance and child support entitlements. See Transfer of information between Centrelink and Child Support.

A child may continue to be an FTB child or Regular Care Child (RCC) of a customer during short-term (temporary) absences, generally less than 4 weeks. Temporary absence from care provisions must not be applied when the change of care is formal, even if it is less than 28 days.

Formal care can include instances where:

• a child is removed by a relevant state child protection service and placed into the care of another carer
• the care is legally authorised by a court
• the change of care involves a change in legal responsibility (whether this is removal of legal responsibility from a carer or where an additional carer gains legal responsibility of the child without the current care losing legal responsibility)

However, in some circumstances, a longer period may still be regarded as a short-term absence that does not affect FTB eligibility. For example, a child may be away on holiday with relatives for longer than 4 weeks. The child may be given money for expenses by their parent who is also still responsible for making decisions about the child's welfare while the child is away. In these cases, the child may still be an FTB child of the parent.

If a customer is advising of a care change, the Service Officer needs to identify if it is a temporary change in care. If the Service Officer needs help in determining the eligibility for temporary care, see Local Peer Support (LPS) or a Service Support Officer (SSO) using standard escalation protocols.

Once a temporary change in care has been clearly identified and the temporary care decision made, DOC the customer's record with:

• the temporary care details (including start and end date)
• the customer has met the criteria for temporary care

Any evidence relevant to the decision should also be documented and scanned to the record.

If a child is moving or has temporarily moved into the care of an Approved Care Organisation (ACO), the customer may not be eligible for temporary care provisions, even in cases where the care is less than 4 weeks. Care must be taken to determine if the temporary change in care is formal (legal/court order) or informal (customer has delegated their care temporarily to an ACO). For more details, see Eligibility for Family Tax Benefit (FTB) for Approved Care Organisations (ACO) - ACO Smart Centre Processing.

The Resources page has FTB examples of legal responsibility and temporary care provisions identifying when temporary care is not applicable.

For child support purposes only, a one-off block of 100% care is when a person unexpectedly gains 100% care of the child for at least 4 weeks (it may be less depending on the circumstances).

Parental Leave Pay

For children born or entering care on or after 1 July 2023

A child may continue to be a PPL child of a customer during temporary absence from care. Generally, when the birth mother, adoptive parent or other parent is incapable of caring for the child for a period of less than 26 weeks their Parental Leave Pay may continue to be paid.

For children born or entering care before 1 July 2023

A child may continue to be a PPL child of a customer during temporary absence from care. Generally, when the primary claimant is incapable of caring for the child for a period of less than 26 weeks their Parental Leave Pay may continue to be paid.

See Paid Parental Leave scheme child leaves customer's care/custody for more details.

Dad and Partner Pay (DAP)

DAP is not payable for children born or adopted on or after 1 July 2023. Fathers and partners will need to claim PPL.

A customer may continue to receive DAP for a child during a temporary absence from care. The temporary inability to care for the child must be expected to be less than 2 weeks.

For income support, a temporary change of care would usually be for up to 8 weeks. However, the child can be regarded as being in the care of the person for 8-12 weeks if they meet specific criteria. A temporary change of care can continue beyond 12 weeks, but advice must be sought from the appropriate Level 3 Policy Support Helpdesk (by the Level 2 helpdesk) before making a determination. The References page has guidelines.

• If a child leaves a customer's care permanently or indefinitely the customer is no longer eligible for FTB for the child, FTB can continue for other FTB children in the customer's care. If the child dies, further payment of FTB may continue for a period of time depending on the circumstances
• If the child is a Regular Care Child and there are no other FTB or Regular Care Children in care, the customer may lose their entitlement to ancillary benefits

Parental Leave Pay

For children born or entering care on or after 1 July 2023

Claimants must have care of a PPL child on a day to receive a PPL day. As more than one carer can have care on a day, multiple claimants can receive PPL on the same day.

A Primary carer determination will only be required where a customer claims PPL in exceptional circumstances. The customer must be or expected to be the primary carer before the child's 1st birthday/anniversary of care. However, they do not need to be primary carer on a PPL day, just have care on that day.

PPL may continue to paid in the following situations:

• the birth mother relinquishes care of their child as part of the process of adoption or a surrogacy arrangement
• the child has been removed from the birth mother's care by a State or Territory child protection agency
• the child has been unlawfully removed from the customer's care

Note: the birth mother remains eligible for PPL even if care of the child is relinquished, as long as no more than one hour of paid work is performed on a day they receive PPL.

For children born or entering care before 1 July 2023

• The customer must be the primary carer of the child to be eligible for Parental Leave Pay (PPL). The gaining carer may be eligible to claim PPL as a primary claimant or secondary claimant of the child PPL may continue to paid in the following situations:
• the birth mother relinquishes care of their child as part of the process of adoption or a surrogacy arrangement
• the child has been removed from the birth mother's care by a State or Territory child protection agency
• the child has been unlawfully removed from the customer's care
• There are no exceptions for DAP to be payable when a child has permanently left the customers care. If the customer advises their child has left their care permanently, check if there is another period they had care of the child. If the customer is eligible to DAP for the child for another period, advise them to change their nominated start date

See Paid Parental Leave scheme child leaves customer's care/custody for more details.

• The customer may no longer eligible for ABSTUDY or ABSTUDY Schooling A for the child. As care updates do not 'ripple' to the ABSTUDY child's record, record the details on an open ABSTUDY Change of Care Fast Note template for action by the ABSTUDY Smart Centre Processing Team
• For income support payments, the customer will no longer be considered a principal carer unless they have another qualifying dependent child in their care. PP customers may need to claim another payment such as JobSeeker Payment (JSP). If the customer remains eligible for Parenting Payment Single (PPS), they may need to meet compulsory part-time participation requirements, depending on the age of their youngest PP child. JSP/Youth Allowance (YA)/Special Benefit (SpB) customers will be subject to full-time mutual obligation requirements if they are no longer a principal carer of a dependent child.
  See Principal carer of a dependent child. If a customer's only dependent child dies, they may be qualified to continue to receive income support payments for a period of time, depending on the circumstances. See Death of a dependent child of a JobSeeker Payment (JSP) or Youth Allowance (YA) customer, Death of a Parenting Payment (PP) child or Initial contact after the death of a dependent child
• The customer's rate of benefit/pension may reduce if the customer no longer qualifies for the 'with child' rate. For customers paid under the pension income test, the additional income free area will reduce as this depends on the number of dependent children in their care
• An additional procedure applies when a customer is receiving Carer Allowance and/or Carer Payment for a child and the child leaves their care. Unless the carer provides care for other care receivers, they will no longer qualify for Carer Allowance (CA) and/or Carer Payment (CP)
• Assistance for Isolated Children (AIC) payment will need to be reassessed if an AIC child has recently left care, or the care percentage has dropped below 50%

The SSA Shared Care (SSC) screen/shared care table, ‘shared care percentage’ and ‘principal carer indicator’ is used for all income support payments when determining principal carer status.

The following rules apply to the PC indicator on the SSC screen/shared care table to facilitate correct coding:

• Care percentage 55% and above must be coded with Y
• Care percentage 45% and below must be coded with N
• Care percentage 46% to 54% (equal care) can be coded with Y or N

For equal care, staff must ensure a principal carer assessment has been completed and the PC indicator updated correctly.

For single JSP, YAL (jobseeker) and SpB customers coding of the principal carer determination on the SSC screen/shared care table will automatically update the customers principal carer status on the PCCD screen.

Note: Child Override/Claim (CHOC) screen override codes, PCN and PCY may be used in very limited circumstances, for example where there are more than two carers. See Child Override/Claim (CHOC) screen.

If the change of care is part of a continuing pattern of care (care of the child is shared between 2 or more people over a certain period), an assessment of care should be completed to determine eligibility for FTB (including ancillary benefits) and social security payments separately. See:

• Notification and assessment of shared care arrangements for Family Tax Benefit (FTB)
• Shared care for social security payments

The shared care percentage is recorded separately for FTB and for social security payments. Where a customer is income support payment (ISP) current, SSA Shared Care (SSC) must be coded for all changes in care and shared care. SSC screen/shared care table, ‘shared care percentage’ and ‘principal carer indicator’ must be updated for these changes.

Note: a problem (P24845) has been identified where shared care is not being correctly applied when a child is in the care of a parent who has transferred their FTB to their current partner (step parent). The Resources page has more details.

Family Tax Benefit (FTB) is not payable to grandparents and non-parent carers who are caring for a child in a child care capacity, for example child attending child care (either child care centre/family day care or care by a relative/friend) or staying overnight with a grandparent, other relative or family friend. For more details, see Eligibility for Family Tax Benefit (FTB) for grandparent carers.

If someone who is not the child's parent takes a child away from a person who has legal responsibility for the child, the child may be considered to be an abducted child or a child out of care without consent. If the other parent has taken the child contrary to a care arrangement, payment for the child will be considered under the disputed care provisions.

Payment of FTB may continue for an interim period between 4 weeks and up to 52 weeks in some of these circumstances, and up to 8 weeks for income support payments.

If a child stops being in a person's care without their consent on or after 1 July 2012, discretion can be applied so that the percentage of care can immediately be based on the actual level of care if there are special circumstances which support that outcome. The decision would result in the losing carer's eligibility for FTB for the child stopping. The person who has actual care of the child may be eligible for FTB payments for the child if they meet the normal eligibility criteria.

Note: the References page has links to the Family Assistance Guide and more details about the length of interim periods.

PPL scheme payments

PPL scheme payments may continue to be payable to the customer if their child is removed from their care without their consent. The customer must be taking reasonable steps to have the child returned to their care.

In certain circumstances, a person can continue to be paid an income support payment as a principal carer if they continue to take reasonable steps to recover care of the child. In the event of a temporary absence of more than 8 weeks, advice must be sought from the appropriate Level 3 Policy Support Helpdesk (by the Level 2 helpdesk) before making a determination.

The References page has guidelines.

For customers receiving CCS, a short-term absence will not affect eligibility, if the child is still considered to be in the customer's care and the customer is still liable for the child care fees. If a child leaves a customer's care, the customer's CCS for that child is to be cancelled.

Child records exist separately and need to be linked to the record of each customer caring for the child. When details for a child are updated, the changes will 'ripple' to all other customer records linked to the child record. 'Shadow' child records show for customers in other environments who share a child's details.