Payment of School Meals Program (SMP) expenses from Income Management (IM) funds or Centrepay 103-01040030

Item

Description

1

Customer in hardship - wishes to cease the allocation over the school holidays

School Meals Program expense allocations are annualised over the full school year from the start of Term 1 to the end of Term 4. The cost of each program has been calculated on the basis that parents will continue to contribute over the school holidays.

Ceasing the expense may result in the provider contacting them to recover funds for meals provided.

If the parent insists that the expense allocation cease, discuss the reasons:

• Child no longer enrolled
  • Advise the parent that school attendance is compulsory for children aged 6-15 years in the Northern Territory. If the parent insists that the child is not attending school then cease the School Meals Program expense allocation and clearly record details on a DOC on the customer's record
• Parent is in hardship and needs the funds to pay for food over the school holidays:
  • Check the IM balance and other regular allocations. If possible, increase the regular allocation to the BasicsCard or community store for food
  • Review all non-essential expense allocations being made, including voluntary deductions (Centrepay). Can these be suspended or reduced over the school holidays to free up funds? Consideration needs to be given to the priority needs of the customer at the time of contact

If there are insufficient unallocated funds available and the parent is in hardship then cease the expense allocation for the School Meals Program immediately.

To ensure the customer continues to receive meals under the program, discuss recommencing allocations at the beginning of the next school term. If the customer agrees, re-establish the School Meals Program expense allocation with a future start date. If the customer does not agree then advise the customer that they should contact again when the child goes back to school to re-commence the expense allocation.

In all cases where the School Meals Program expense allocation is being ceased due to hardship the Service Officer must fully document the details of the assessment and other options considered on the customer's record.

Re-commencing the School Meals Program allocation

When setting up the School Meals Program expense allocation at the start of the new school term, the customer should be advised they may be contacted by the provider to recover missed payments. Under no circumstances is Services Australia to place the customer under any duress to make up any missed payments.

Should a customer wish to make up for missed payments, amounts owing can be paid via one-off payments or an increase to their regular expense allocation. Where the amounts owing are being paid via an increase to a regular allocation this must be noted on the customer's record in a Display on Access DOC. Note: all School Meals Program expense allocations cease at the end of Term 4, so amounts owed for past periods cannot be paid by changing the end date.

2

Child is to be hospitalised or other health reason

Cancel the School Meals Program expense allocation. If the customer knows how long the child will be absent from school, restart the expense allocation with the appropriate future start date. If the customer does not know how long the child will be absent from school, tell them that they will need to initiate contact to restart the allocation.

Note: siblings not affected and who continue to attend the local school should remain on the program.

3

Moving to another Community or to a Regional Centre

Cease expense allocations to the old community School Meals Program and re-establish expense allocations to the new program (if available) in the new community as discussed with the customer.

Students from a community attending a residential boarding school are not required to have School Meals Program expense allocations made for them as meals are provided.

4

Unhappy with the food provided or any other aspect of the program

Find out why the customer is unhappy, for example, is it a question of value for money or quality?

Access and complete the Customer Feedback Webform with customer details and the reason for their complaint.

The webform can be used to record feedback from a customer, about a Third Party Organisation known to Services Australia or a third party who has no Customer Reference Number.

If the complaint is about a School Meals Program provider, funded by the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA), complaints and feedback will be passed onto NIAA.

5

Child not at school

All 6 to 15 year olds must attend school. If sick at home, the carer can go to the school and get the meal.

Note: if the parent has done all they can to get their child to attend school and the school is aware of the child's ongoing absence, then it is reasonable to cease an expense allocation to the School Meals Program if the child is not attending.

6

Homeland and Outstation students

If a homeland or outstation student travels to a hub community where there is a School Meals Program they can participate in that program.

7

Costs too much / not interested

Have a discussion with the customer to cover the following points:

• Price and value is good when compared to purchasing similar meals at the local store
• The cost of the School Meals Program has been kept to a minimum as a level of absence and public holidays have been included when calculating the cost
• Student's school attendance is improved and everyone receives the same meals
• Do not have to worry about children eating when there is no money around in the community
• School teachers can concentrate on preparing classes and not be involved in organising meals for students
• School Meals Program expense allocations stop during end of year school holidays

If, after the discussion, the customer insists on ceasing the School Meals Program expense allocation, fully DOC the record to verify that the customer has explained how they are meeting the child's daily food needs.