Job Capacity Assessment (JCA) and Employment Services Assessment (ESAt) appointments 008-06100010

In Process Direct:

• from the Process Direct Landing page, select Customer Summary
• key the customer's CRN, select Go
• in the customer's record select > > Participation Summary > Job seeker registration & provider referral information

To:

• request a JCA referral, go to Step 2
• request an ESAt, go to Step 3
• respond to a customer in receipt of Disability Support Pension (DSP) who fails to attend an ESAt appointment, and:
• is a DSP volunteer, go to Step 4
• payment has been suspended, see Table 2
• respond to customers who are in hardship or have been suspended incorrectly, see Table 3

Services Australia can create a JCA referral via Customer First or Process Direct.

Assessment Services will:

• review the information in the JCA Referral Request DOC
• action requests in priority order
• book the JCA appointment
• arrange interpreters (if required), and
• complete the JCA

Services Australia can request an ESAt by using the ESAt appointment required Fast Note.

Assessment Services will:

• book the ESAt
• arrange interpreters (if required), and
• complete the ESAt

If the customer was referred for an ESAt on a voluntary basis, there is no requirement for Services Australia to manage the customer's non-attendance after the referral is finalised as 'Unable to Complete' by Assessment Services. This includes:

• customers in receipt of DSP who are volunteering for Employment Services, and
• people not in receipt of an income support payment who directly register with an Employment Services Provider

If a voluntary customer fails to attend an ESAt appointment, change their Job Seeker Registration to inactive. To do this, select Participation Summary > Job seeker registration & provider referral information > Inactivate job seeker registration.

If the customer contacts again, register them as a job seeker and request another ESAt.

Procedure ends here.

Service Officers cannot change these appointments. Contact the relevant Assessment Services team:

• to request the appointment be rescheduled
• to request the appointment be cancelled
• by phone, to request changing the mode of a JCA or ESAt assessment. Assessment Services will change the customer's appointment to a suitable appointment mode

Where a face-to-face, video conference or phone JCA appointment has been booked by Assessment Services, it has been decided that the customer will benefit from this mode of assessment to help in determining qualification for DSP. It is in the customer's best interest to attend the JCA appointment and have an opportunity to discuss their case with the Assessor to contribute to the assessment of their medical condition(s).

ESAt appointments are compulsory (unless they are a Disability Support Pension (DSP) volunteer), as they determine the customer's participation requirements.

ESAt appointments can only be rescheduled or cancelled by the relevant Assessment Services team and cannot be cancelled by Service Officers. If a Service Officer believes an appointment is no longer required, and the customer has a booked appointment, contact Assessment Services.

Service Officer should connect the customer via softphone to Assessment Services on 1800 110 608 for an immediate assessment if customer:

• is wanting to reschedule a future booked ESAt appointment,
• are experiencing vulnerabilities, or
• have their payment suspended due to a missed ESAt appointment

Note: tell customers who fail to attend their appointment, they risk their payments being suspended and possible penalties being applied for non-compliance.

Participation requirements for DSP customers were introduced on 1 July 2012. These requirements apply to customers under 35 years of age who have an assessed as having a work capacity of 8 hours or more.

When requesting an ESAt for these customers, tell them that failure to attend may result in their payment being suspended.

If the customer contacts due to suspension of payment for failing to attend an ESAt appointment, go to Step 2.

There are different processes for customers with mutual obligation requirements if their payments are suspended for failing to attend an appointment. See Actioning automatic activities of a current Employment Services Assessment (ESAt) referral.

If a customer is making contact about being suspended for not attending their scheduled appointment, the Service Officer should offer to connect the customer via softphone to Assessment Services on 1800 110 608 for an immediate assessment.

Was contact with Assessment Services successful?

• Yes, go to Step 5
• No, or if the customer is unable or unwilling to undertake an immediate assessment and the benefit line is showing a suspension status of:
• ES1 (suspension 1), go to Step 3
• ES2 (suspension 2), go to Step 7
• has an MFU activity after the customer has attended second appointment, go to Step 8

This information applies to an ESAt request if:

• the customer receives a payment which has mutual obligation requirements (including those with exemptions)
• the purpose of the ESAt request was to determine requirements for the customer's current payment, and
• the customer's payment has not previously been suspended for the current ESAt request

If the customer's benefit status line is showing a suspension reason of ES1, tell them that their payment has been suspended because they did not attend their appointment and payment cannot be restored until they arrange a new one.

In Process Direct:

• from the Process Direct Landing page, select Customer Summary
• key the customer's CRN, select Go
• from the Task Selector, select > Employment Services Assessment (ESAt) Attendance to open the ESAt attendance screen
• a warning message will display advising 'The customer has failed to attend at least one Employment Services Assessment appointment as indicated below. Please arrange a new Employment Services Assessment appointment for the customer. Payment cannot be restored until a new appointment is made'
• confirm if the customer can attend a new Employment Service Assessment appointment. Select Yes or No
• if Yes is selected, go to Step 4
• if No is selected, from Restoration because of issues with the current referral, or customer in hardship, select the reason why the customer cannot attend their ESAt appointment
• record details of the appointment in the Discussion log, select Next
• when the Benefit Action screen displays, select Add New
• in the Create Benefit Action screen, complete the relevant fields, select Save
• complete the Receipt date and Channel fields, select Save
• select Assess, address any errors/warnings
• finalise the transaction by selecting Assess again
• Record details of the restoration on the Finalise screen, including:
• the decision itself
• the Act/Guide reference upon which the decision is based, and
• the reason for making the decision
• select Finalise to complete the transaction

Reinforce with the customer that non-attendance may result in payments suspending or cancelling.

Procedure ends here.

An information message will show 'Immediately arrange a new appointment'. See Job Capacity Assessment (JCA) and Employment Services Assessment (ESAt) appointments.

Contact Assessment Services to arrange an appointment.

Note: if the customer is unable or unwilling to undertake an immediate assessment, Assessment Services, see ESS WEB to book a future ESAt appointment, then continue with workflow.

Was contact with Assessment Services successful?

• Yes, go to Step 5
• No, go to Step 6

If contact with Assessment Services is successful:

• if assessment could not be undertaken immediately, advise customer of the appointment details
• record details of the appointment in the Discussion log, select Next
• when the Benefit Action screen displays, select Add New
• when the Create Benefit Action screen displays, complete the relevant fields, select Save
• complete the Receipt date and Channel fields, select Save
• select Assess, address any errors/warnings
• finalise the transaction by selecting Assess again
• record details of the restoration on the Finalise screen, including:
• the decision itself
• the Act/Guide reference upon which the decision is based, and
• the reason for making the decision
• select Finalise to complete the transaction

If assessment could not be undertaken immediately, reinforce with the customer that:

• non-attendance may result in payments suspending or cancelling, and
• to minimise the risk of further non-attendance, restoration of payment on hardship grounds pending attendance at the appointment must only occur in exceptional circumstances. See Step 1 in Table 3

Procedure ends here.

If contact with the Assessment Services Team is not successful or an appointment cannot be booked immediately:

• record details in the Discussion log
• select Next to exit the workflow
• In the customer's record, select Fast Note - Auto text > select Generic > Appointments > ESAt reschedule reqd for SUS customer > Confirm

This will flow to Assessment services to contact the customer, book a new appointment and complete the restoration.

Procedure ends here.

If the customer's benefit status line is showing a suspension reason of ES2, tell the customer that their payment has been suspended because they did not attend their second appointment. Payments will not be restored until the result of 'Attended' is recorded for that appointment.

In all cases, the Service Officer must check that the ESAt request is still appropriate given current circumstances, and that an ESAt appointment is still required to assess the customer's barriers to employment. In some circumstances, payment may be restored without arranging a new appointment with the Assessor, go to Step 6.

To minimise the risk of further non-attendance, restoration of payment on hardship grounds pending attendance at the appointment must only occur in exceptional circumstances. See Step 1 in Table 3.

Staff are to:

• run the Employment Services Assessment Attendance workflow (see Step 3)
• tell the customer their payments will remain suspended until they have attended the new appointment, unless they meet hardship requirements
• offer to contact the customer via softphone to Assessment Services on 1800 110 608 for an immediate assessment

Procedure ends here.

After the customer attends the new appointment, a Manual Follow-up (MFU) activity is created to advise that payments can be restored. The restoration of payment should be actioned by selecting the activity. Full arrears should be paid from the date of suspension.

Procedure ends here.

When contact is made, talk to the customer to find out if new information may lead to a reassessment of the original requirement for the customer to have an ESAt.

In some circumstances the customer's payments may be restored without requiring them to attend a new appointment, or if there are exceptional issues with the current request.

Restore payment immediately if any of the following conditions are met and appropriate alternative arrangements have been made:

• the customer is unable to be connected via softphone to Assessment Services on 1800 110 608 for an immediate assessment and the customer is in hardship is awaiting appointment (APS5 or above only), see Step 1 in Table 3
• new information provided and an ESAt request is no longer required, contact the relevant Assessment Services team
• payments were incorrectly suspended where the customer has mutual obligation requirements, where the 'did not attend' outcome has been incorrectly recorded by the Assessor, see Step 2 in Table 3

Services Australia must consider the customer's circumstances. For example, it is not reasonable to require a customer to attend an appointment if they are currently hospitalised due to a serious illness.

Note: Manual Follow-up (MFU) action will generally be required where a customer's payment is restored using an alternative manual reason, see Step 4 in Table 3. In all cases where payment is restored without arranging a new appointment (for example, because an ESAt is no longer required), contact Assessment Services to advise of the decision so that the current request can be cancelled.

The customer's payment may be restored before a new appointment is arranged if there are exceptional circumstances that mean it would be unreasonable to maintain suspension of payment before a new appointment is arranged. The restoration must be completed using the Employment Services Assessment Attendance workflow via the Task Selector (see Step 3 in Table 2).

First suspension

Restoration action will only be appropriate if:

• the customer is unable to be connected via softphone to Assessment Services on 1800 110 608 for an immediate assessment. and
• the customer will be placed in hardship because of this delay (normal payment is overdue), and
• an APS5 or above has recommended restoration of payment

Record workflow outcomes and discussions in the Discussion Log.

Second or subsequent suspension

Restoration action will only be appropriate if:

• the customer is unable to be connected via softphone to Assessment Services on 1800 110 608 for an immediate assessment. and
• the customer will be placed in hardship because of this delay, and
• a senior officer (APS5 or above) has recommended restoration of payment

Record workflow outcomes and discussions in the Discussion Log.

If conditions are met:

• use the Employment Services Assessment Attendance workflow via the Task Selector (see Step 3 in Table 2).
• record outcome in the Discussion Log
• the customer's payment may be immediately restored (subject to other qualification and payability provisions) and full arrears paid
• if an appointment has already been arranged, tell the customer:
• about the requirement to attend the new appointment, and
• that payment may be suspended again if they fail to attend, and
• if a new appointment has not yet been arranged, contact the relevant Assessment Services team

Note: a Manual Follow-up (MFU) will be created to make sure a new ESAt appointment is booked.

Go to Step 3 for manual restoration of payments.

A customer's payment may be incorrectly suspended, where the customer attended the appointment but the Assessor has recorded a 'Did not Attend' outcome in the Online Diary. For example, as the customer was late to the appointment that the Assessor subsequently conducted.

In this case, manually restore the customer's payments via the Employment Services Assessment Attendance workflow.

If the ESAt request has been incorrectly finalised by Assessment Services as 'UTC', the customer can only be reconnected by making a new request.

See Request an Employment Services Assessment (ESAt) for the request process.

After a customer attends the new ESAt appointment, the Centrelink system will be notified and a MFU activity is created, to advise that payments can be restored.

This is a 'JSM/MFU' activity with a keyword of 'JCAATT'.

If the suspension reason is 'ES2', the system will not allow the customer's payment to be restored until this activity is created, to confirm that the customer has attended their appointment (or unless an alternative manual restoration reason such as hardship has been recorded).

Restoration of payment should be actioned by selecting the 'MFU' activity.

Full arrears should be paid from the date of suspension.

MFU action will generally be required where a customer's payment is restored using an alternative manual reason.

Manual action to contact the relevant Assessment Services team is required in all cases where the customer's payment has been restored for this reason. However this arrangement should have been agreed to before restoring the customer's payment and should not be a follow-up action.

MFU action and contact with Assessment Services will be required to:

• arrange a new appointment, where the customer's payment has been restored on hardship grounds, and a new appointment was not able to be arranged at the time payment was restored
• ask for the current request to be cancelled, where it has been determined that an ESAt is no longer required. For example, where new information has been provided

An activity will be created to advise the requirement to book an ESAt appointment or take appropriate action to set the Job Seeker Snapshot to a status of 'active' where:

• an ESAt is finalised as 'Unable To Complete', and
• the Job Seeker Snapshot status is 'pending'

The activity will remain active on the customer record until 1 of the following occurs:

• a new ESAt appointment is made by Assessment Services
• the Job Seeker Snapshot status becomes active or inactive, or
• the jobseeker registration is inactivated or payment is cancelled