Actioning Approved Care Organisation (ACO) advice of transfer, discharge or absence of a young person 102-05050030

Who is claiming/eligible for FTB

• an ACO, go to Step 2
• another party for a child listed as being in the care of an ACO, go to Step 3

An ACO admission, transfer or discharge spreadsheet is received via email advising Services Australia the young person:

• has been discharged from the ACO's care, go to Step 5
• has absconded from the ACO, go to Step 3
• is on a temporary absence from the ACO, go to Step 4
• has been admitted to an ACO, see Processing Family Tax Benefit (FTB) claims of Approved Care Organisations (ACO)

If a young person has left the care of, absconded or is missing from an ACO, FTB/DOP payments to the ACO for the young person must cease from the date the young person left care, go to Step 5.

The Child out of care without consent 14 week rule, which generally applies when a young person leaves a parent/individual care without the parent/individual's consent, does not apply in the case of ACOs.

• If the young person is on a temporary absence, such as an admission to hospital or transfer to another facility closer for arraignment, and is still a client of the ACO, continue payment of FTB/Double Orphan Pension (DOP) to the ACO
• Record details on a DOC

Procedure ends here.

If the young person has been discharged from the ACO, or the ACO is no longer eligible to receive FTB for the child, cancel FTB/DOP from the date the young person left their care.

Child is not a customer

• In the other carers record, ‘S’elect the child from Child Selected (CHS) screen
• Code ‘CHC’ in Nxt to go to the Child in Care (CHC) screen
• On the CHC screen code ‘LCC’ using the correct Event Date, code number corresponding to ACO in 'Carer' field

Child has their own PER record

• Key the Child's CRN in the CRN field to go to the child record
• On the CHS screen, 'S'elect 'Self'
• Code ‘CHC’ in Nxt, to go to the Child in Care (CHC) screen
• On the CHC screen code ‘LCC’ using the correct Event Date, code number corresponding to ACO in 'Carer' field

As FTB shared care legislation only applies to individuals, the FTB Shared Care (FSC), SSA Shared Care (SSC) and the Care Alignment Details (!CADDS) screens are not required to be coded.

Child changes recorded on one customer's record will 'ripple' to other customers linked to the child. Any changes recorded affecting the 'losing carer' will need to be merged, or left started to make sure the changes flow on correctly, before completion:

• On the Assessment Results (AR) screen:
• stop at the Ripple Manager (RMC) screen to update the ripple activities to the related carers
• change the assessment instruction for the respective customers from Complete to Start for the affected ACO
• select continue to go to the AR screen and finalise the activity on the child/other carer’s record
• Enter the record of the ACO and select the ripple activity from the Activity List (AL) screen created by the ripple, check the result is correct and finalise the activity
• Use Fast Note - select Auto text, use Families>Claims>ACO discharge, to DOC the record

Has activity resulted in a debt?

• Yes, go to Step 6
• No, procedure ends here

Select the debt shell activity from the Activity List (AL) screen. Go to the Modify/Assess Debt (OPMA) screen and note the:

• Debt ID
• estimated amount, and
• start and end dates

Use this information to confirm the details pre-populated in the Raise A Debt guided procedure:

• Go to the Component Amount (OPCA) screen within the debt shell activity. Note the:
• components of the overpayment
• start and end dates of each component
• amount of each component
• Confirm the total received (old rate) and the total entitled (new rate) for the Letter Details section of the guided procedure.

Open the ADEX for the debt shell with the source AMR of the ripple activity. For details on how to view ADEX, see Using ADEX to explain a system generated debt.

ADEX displays the total amounts under the Old Rate (amount received) and New Rate (amount entitled) for the debt period. Note these amounts with the other details already noted from the OPMA and OPCA screens.

• Go to Step 7.

Go to workspace and select the Raise A Debt guided procedure.

• Select the grey box to the left of the appropriate Debt ID (as noted in Step 3) and select Next.
• Complete the relevant information relating to the debt. If the Debt ID was selected in Step 3, most of the information will auto populate. Manually enter:
• Reason - Qualification/Payablity
• Note: ACO overpayment due to child leaving care
• Benefit type - Family Tax Benefit
• Section of Act - auto populates based on the Benefit Type and Reason
• Date of Event - is the date of the event that caused the debt
• Start Date/End Date - is the debt period. Check the dates are correct and adjust, if necessary, to match the details from OPMA
• Calculated Amount $ - Enter the calculated amount the customer has been over paid. For automatically created debt shells, this equals the Estimated Amount displayed on the OPMA screen
• How was the debt calculated? - Select the Mainframe ADX option
• Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are mandatory
• Select Next
• Go to Step 8

The Component Details screen expands to allow adding further component information if required.

Select the Add button to add as many component lines as required:

• One component must have a start date equal to the debt period start date
• One component must have the end date equal to the debt period end date
• The component start and end dates cannot cover multiple financial years
• Record each financial year component amount on separate lines

Type is a drop down box. Select the one off Payment type from this list.

Ben is the payment type as paid in the Payment Summary. For example, if it was a Schoolkids Bonus payment paid with Family Tax Benefit, enter Family Tax Benefit.

Note: not all payments need a Qualification code. The Type and Ben should be required in most cases.

Select Next.

Go to Step 9

Complete the information which appears in the Account Payable letter:

• Make sure the information recorded on this screen is correct. It will print exactly as typed
• Check the total received equals the debt amount
• Check if a standard text exists
• Do not suppress the advice. This serves as legal notification to the customer

Explain the reason for the debt. See rules for entering free text in the Account Payable letter.

For example: This is because you received Family Tax Benefit for a child not in your care.

• Update the Contact Name and Contact Phone fields with XX and number for the debt benefit type
• In the Total Received and Total Entitled fields, enter the amounts from the ADEX screen in Step 3
• Select Next.
• From the drop down box in the Finished? field, select the required action
• Select Next. On the Create a document screen, record all relevant information

Identify the reason for the email.

Check the approved email templates on the Letters > Centrelink templates > Families > Approved Care Organisations sub-site.

Is there an email template that can be used to respond to the reason for the contact?

• Yes, go to Step 2
• No, go to Step 4

In the positional mailbox, use the appropriate approved ACO email template, make sure to follow all formatting instructions.

Does the email response relate to an overpayment?

• Yes, go to Step 3
• No, send the email, procedure ends here

• Go to the HS screen
• Open the twisty next to the Account Payable letter
• Select Print Local
• Change the Copy field to Y on the LPA screen
• Key the [local printer ID] in the Printer ID: field. Report will be printed locally. Staff must collect the letter from the local printer
• Scan the Account Payable letter via the printer and select Email icon on the printer
• Select keyboard icon and enter personal Services Australia email address
• Select OK then select Start. (This will then scan the document and send to Service Officer’s email)
• Account Payable letter will be emailed to the Service Officer’s personal email as a PDF document
• Attach the PDF to the email in the positional mailbox and send it
• Delete the personal email and pdf. Put the hard copy in the secure bin to be destroyed.

Procedure ends here.

If none of the approved email templates answers the reason for contact, make a genuine attempt to contact the ACO by phone to discuss their enquiry.

If the contact is

• unsuccessful,
• record the contact attempts on the ACO’s record
• include the information that would have been provided to the ACO
• procedure ends here
• successful,
• authenticate the person on the phone
• provide them with a response to their email
• record the information on the ACO's record
• if their email relates to an FTB claim, save the email into the relevant ACO eFolder within Content Manager. See the Resources page for a link to further information on Content Manager on the Intranet