Disability Support Pension (DSP) cancellations, suspensions and restorations 008-03130000

DSP may be suspended if a customer is not eligible for payment. Before suspending payment, care should be taken to establish that the customer is not eligible for payment, that there is a legislative basis to suspend the payment, and that all appropriate action has been taken. For example, if a customer fails to attend an interview, attempts to contact the customer must be made first.

If the decision is made to suspend payment, immediate action should be taken to advise the customer of the suspension and their rights of review and appeal to avoid placing them in financial hardship.

Where staff consider the manual suspension of DSP, the following action must be taken:

• Ensure that an appropriate request for information/action was issued to the customers prior to any suspension action being considered. A notice must include details about the information/action required, the timeframe for response (noting this must be reasonable), the consequences of non-compliance, and the reference to the relevant Act the request has been made under.
• Only once the appropriate time for response has passed should consideration be given to suspending payments. If a decision to manually suspend payment is made and an automatic letter is not sent, a manual advice is to be issued. This advice must clearly outline to the customer the reason their payment was suspended, the date of effect, reference DSP and the relevant section of the legislation and the customer’s review and appeal rights.

DSP can be restored where the customer's eligibility has been re-established after a suspension or cancellation, in some circumstances without the need for a new claim. If there have been changes to the customer's circumstances the system must be updated with the new information before payment is restored in order to avoid incorrect arrears being generated.

Payment can only start from the date that the customer became eligible again, taking into account the date of event rules.

DSP can be cancelled when a customer is no longer qualified. Service Officers must ensure that cancellation is the correct action to take. Care needs to be taken where a customer who has a mental health condition requests cancellation of their payment.

The Centrelink system uses codes when a decision to cancel or suspend a payment, or to reject a claim, is recorded on the computer system. A description of the code is used in correspondence with customers.

Some of these actions occur automatically due to an update being made to the customer's circumstances on the computer system (for example, income or asset details). Others are coded manually.

Manual Intervention will be required on occasion to review automatic (and some manual) suspensions and cancellation of customers identified as being vulnerable or at risk. The process of manual intervention has been introduced to review the circumstances of vulnerable customers where their income support payment remains suspended or cancelled for a minimum of six weeks as a result of an auto suspension or cancellation activity.

The new manual intervention process will be triggered by a combination of the type of income support payment received by the customer, and the suspension or cancellation reason.

A customer can maintain qualification for TAL for 6 months after their income support payment is suspended or cancelled because either they or their partner began employment or have an increase in employment income. The customer must continue to meet the qualifications for TAL.