Manual review after automatic payment suspension and cancellation of vulnerable customers 008-03130050

Customers may have trouble engaging with Services Australia if they are at risk or have vulnerabilities such as:

• living in remote areas with little or no access to health services
• being homeless
• having an intellectual impairment
• showing behaviours which indicate a chronic mental health condition
• having just been released from prison
• having limited English proficiency
• arriving in Australia on a refugee or humanitarian visa

Service Officers must make 2 genuine attempts to contact customers to talk about:

• the reason for suspension or cancellation
• what is needed to restore their payment, and/or
• putting a nominee arrangement in place if appropriate

Customers who need extra support to engage may benefit from a referral to a specialist such as:

• Social Workers
• Community Engagement Officer (CEO)
• Indigenous Services Officer (ISO)
• Multicultural Service Officer (MSO)
• Customer Critical Response Team (CCRT)

The agency uses a manual process to review vulnerable customers when the system auto suspends or cancels their payment for a minimum of 6 weeks.

The customer selection process for manual review is:

• started by the:
• type of payment
• suspension or cancellation code, and
• time since suspension or cancellation reason
• used for customers getting these payment types:
• Age Pension
• Carer Payment (CP)
• Disability Support Pension (DSP)
• Special Benefit (SpB all provisions)

Note: the manual process does not include customers living permanently overseas.