Suspending, cancelling and restoring Farm Household Allowance (FHA) 002-02080010

If customer contact is made about a decision to suspend their payments, go to Step 4.

If the FHA payment has been suspended, check:

• the decision to suspend the customer's payment is correct
• a notice was issued to the customer
• the notice contained details of:
• the information/action required by the customer, and
• the timeframe for response, and
• the consequences of non-compliance, and
• a reference to the relevant legislation under which the notice is given, and
• the customer has not complied with the request

When suspending the customer's payment, check if the partner's payment is to be suspended. For example, the customer and partner have failed to submit a Financial Farm Assessment by the required date.

Farm Household Case Officers (FHCOs) may only suspend FHA payments if the customer has failed to:

• enter into a Financial Improvement Agreement (FIA) as requested
• complete an FIA activity within the specified timeframe and does not have a reasonable excuse
• attend an appointment with the FHCO

Before the suspension of FHA can occur, determine the following:

• reason for suspension
• date of effect, see Suspension of payments (CLK) for help

Is the required information available to action the suspension?

• Yes, go to Step 3
• No, contact the Service Officer who requested the suspension to get the details needed to code the suspension

Before manually suspending a customer's payment, check for a Payment Determined Social Service Plan (SSP), if present, finalise this first.

To suspend a customer's payment:

• select the FHA Workflow from the Task Selector and select the FHA Benefit action
• select the + Add button
• key the required fields on the Benefit Action details screen
• Benefit Type code Farm Household Allowance
• Date of Effect (DD/MM/YYYY) this cannot be a future date. See Suspension of payments (CLK) for help
• Benefit action SUS
• Reason Relevant suspension reason. See Resources page for a list
• Select Current or Previous Approved SSP
• Select the relevant SSP ID
• Comment Free text to explain suspension reason
• save and add receipt date and channel details

Review and approve the SSP:

• Record details on a DOC use Fast Note - select Auto text > use Rural > SUS/CAN/RES > FHA Suspension
• Details must include the suspension reason, and the information used to determine the suspension
• Tell the customer of the decision. See Advising verbally of an unfavourable decision

An automatic suspension letter to the customer generates.

Issue a manual suspension letter for the manual suspension reasons of:

• Overseas (OVS)
• Payability overseas ceased (POC)

See Creating a Q134 letter and Q134 text examples.

Has the customer contacted about suspension within 13 weeks?

• Yes, if the customer has supplied the required information or completed the activity within 13 weeks of date of decision to suspend FHA, restore the payment. See Table 3

• No, payment will be cancelled. If the customer wants to receive FHA again, they may need to submit a new claim to assess their eligibility. Procedure ends here

If customer contact is made about a decision to cancel their payments, go to Step 2

Before cancelling a customer's payment, establish that the customer has lost eligibility for that payment. When cancelling the customer's payment, check if their partner's payment is also to be cancelled.

• for system determined cancellations, go to Step 3
• for manual cancellations, go to Step 4

Farm Household Case Officers (FHCOs) can only cancel a customer's FHA payment where the customer has:

• failed to enter into a Financial Improvement Agreement (FIA) and payment has already been suspended for 13 weeks
• failed to complete an FIA activity within the specified timeframe and does not have a reasonable excuse, and payment has already been suspended for 13 weeks
• requested FHA payments to be cancelled

Where cancellations are required for any other reason, FHCOs must direct the customer to contact the Farmers Assistance Line 132 316. For more details, see Change of circumstance for Farm Household Allowance (FHA).

Has the customer contacted within 13 weeks of the decision to cancel their payments?

Note: if the cancellation has resulted from a customer not contacting within 13 weeks following suspension of payment, restoration is not possible, and the customer must reclaim.

• Yes:
• If the customer has provided the required information or completed the activity within 13 weeks of the date of the decision to cancel FHA, restore payment
  Exception: customers who were in prison or in psychiatric confinement must reclaim FHA upon their release. See Table 3
• If the customer is a 6-weekly reporter, has been cancelled Failed to Report (FRP), and does not want to resume payment, go to Step 6
• No, payment will stay cancelled. If the customer wants to receive FHA again, they must submit a new claim to assess their eligibility

Procedure ends here.

Cancellation of FHA may be automatically generated based on changes to a customer's eligibility. Once this occurs a payment determined Social Service Plan (SSP) creates.

Where the cancellation reason is Already paid 4-years of FHA (O4Y) or where Failed to Report (FRP), the cancellation SSP automatically approves.

All other SSPs need manual approval to finalise the cancellation, including FRP where it alters an existing cancellation reason.

Any final earnings report must be completed. This will generate after the customer's FHA cancellation SSP is approved and may take up to 15 minutes to appear on the system.

Before approving a system determined cancellation:

• review the SSP to determine the cancellation reason and the date of event
• investigate the customer's record to make sure the cancellation is correct. Where FHA is cancelled and the SSP is over-riding the existing reason with FRP, make 2 genuine attempts to contact the customer, in their preferred timeframe where possible, to complete the outstanding report. Once the report is finalised, the SSP must be undone and recalculated
• approve the SSP
• complete the earnings report once it appears on the system
• record details on a DOC, including details for the final earnings report, use Fast Note - select Auto text > use Rural > SUS/CAN/RES > FHA Cancellation:
• Details must include the cancellation reason, and the information used to determine the cancellation
• tell the customer of the decision. See Advising verbally of an unfavourable decision

An automatic cancellation letter to the customer generates.

Note: if a system determined cancellation is deemed incorrect, standard Local Peer Support (LPS) process applies.

Is the customer requesting voluntary surrender/cancellation of payment?

• Yes, where the customer is on a:
• two weekly reporting cycle, cancel their payment with the DOE as their last EPED +1. For coding details, go to Step 5
• six weekly reporting cycle and wishes to lodge their final report, update the reporting cycle to 2 weeklies (2WE), complete the outstanding report
• six weekly reporting cycle and advises they will not be lodging their final report:
  Cancel payment with DOE the EPED + 1 of the last reporting period lodged.
  If payments are received after that date, the system will treat these as overpayments and create a debt.
  For coding details, go to Step 5
• No, go to Step 5

Before manually cancelling a customer's payment, check for a Payment Determined SSP, if present, finalise this first.

If the customer and partner are no longer farming, example, due to the sale of the farm:

• FHA must be cancelled, reason BLA (not a farmer) from the date they ceased to be a farmer
• Farmer Specific Data (FSD) update not required
• Any outstanding 2 or 6 weekly reports must be completed

To cancel a customer's payment:

• Select the FHA Workflow from the Task Selector and select the FHA Benefit action
• Select the + Add button
• Key the required fields on the Benefit Action details screen
• Benefit Type code Farm Household Allowance
• Date of Effect (DD/MM/YYYY) If the customer wants to cancel their FHA payments from a date in the future they must contact back on or after that date
• Benefit action CAN
• Reason Relevant cancellation reason. See Resources page for a list
• Select Current or Previous Approved SSP
• Select the relevant SSP ID
• Comment Free text to explain cancellation reason
• Save and add receipt date and channel details
• If the cancellation covers multiple chains, do the cancellation action on the current approved chain and the Previous Approved chain. This ensures that the periods covered in each chain are assessed. These must be separate assessments

Once the follow-up SSP has generated:

• review and approve the SSP

record details use Fast Note - select Auto text > use Rural > SUS/CAN/RES > FHA Cancellation:

• Details must include the cancellation reason, and the information used to determine the cancellation
• If CAN/CLR include reason that customer has requested cancellation

• tell the customer of the decision. See Advising verbally of an unfavourable decision

An automatic cancellation letter to the customer generates.

Issue a manual cancellation letter for the manual cancellation reasons:

• Client Request (CLR)
• Overseas (OVS)
• Payability overseas ceased (POC)

See Creating a Q134 letter and Q134 text examples.

Where a 6 weekly reporting customer has been cancelled FRP, but does not want to continue with payment and contact is made within 13 weeks, follow the below process:

• Restore FHA from cancelled Failed to Report (FRP). For coding help, see Table 3
• Action the outstanding report that caused the CAN FRP. See Recording and correcting employment income details
• Cancel FHA Client Request (CLR) from date paid to + 1 as shown on Payment List
• Record details using the FHA Cancelled Fast Note
• if CAN/CLR include reason that customer has requested cancellation
• Send a manual cancellation letter, see Creating a Q134 letter

This will make sure the debt shell generated from the CAN FRP action will be set to No Debt due to offsetting of the arrears from the restoration SSP. The customer will stay cancelled as per their request.

If the customer:

• Does not wish to provide the outstanding report information. FHA will stay CAN FRP, and the debt will be raised via debt processing
• Reports outside 13 weeks, the payment cannot be restored to complete the final report. Manually finalise the debt Finalised No Debt (FND). Record on a DOC the customer was given the opportunity to complete the outstanding report and declined
• Contacts outside of 13 weeks from when the cancellation occurred, FHA cannot be restored. If they wish to resume FHA, they must lodge a new claim

Procedure ends here.

For cancellation reasons Already paid 4 years of FHA (O4Y) and Death (DEA), the system automatically:

• cancels the FIA case
• completes outstanding activities
• cancels all outstanding and future appointments, and
• removes the FCHO as the employee responsible

For all other cancellation reasons, FHCO's must:

• cancel the FIA:
• key START into the Super Key
• select FHA FIA Workflow from the Task Selector
• select Edit on the FIA case line to open Edit Financial Improvement Agreement (FIA)
• select Status as Cancelled
• select Canc Reason as FHA cancelled
• cancel all future FIA appointments
• if the customer is CAN FRP inside 13 weeks, make 2 genuine attempts to contact the customer, in their preferred timeframe where possible, to complete the outstanding report
• locate the customer CRN in the FHCO Diary
• cancel any outstanding appointments
• select D-Link CRN
• record a Display on Access (DOA) DOC. Use Fast Note Former FHCO contact details

If an FHA customer has had their payment suspended or cancelled, it may be restored once they have complied with their obligations.

If an FHA customer's payment was suspended for:

• A qualification/compliance failure, the customer will not be back paid for the period of the qualification failure. FHA is restored by actioning the qualification/compliance failure, and then completing the Change Process
  Note: the qualification/compliance failure is only to be removed by the FHCOs
• Failure to complete the FFA, the failure will be resolved when the FFA has been accepted by the Farm Household Case Officer’s (FHCOs). If the FFA is submitted within 13 weeks of the suspension, FHA can be restored
• Other reasons, depending on the circumstances the customer may be back paid, as per section 109 of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999. See References page for a link
• Payments cancelled for reason IMP or PSY are unable to be restored, regardless of the duration of the confinement. The customer must lodge a new claim for payment to be reinstated from the date of claim

FHCOs can action the restoration of payment only after the customer has complied with their obligations and once the qualification/compliance failure has been resolved, if required. Such as:

• complying with their mutual obligation requirements as outlined in the FIA
• successful submission and acceptance of the FFA
• 6 weekly reporters declare nil income for themselves or partner for the outstanding reporting period

Restorations required for any other reason, FHCOs must direct the customer to contact the Farmers Assistance Line 132 316.

Has there been a significant change of circumstances for the customer or the farm enterprise?

• Yes, update the relevant details before restoring the payment
• No, go to Step 3

Is the customer cancelled Failed to Report (FRP) or do they have any outstanding reporting requirements?

Note: FHCOs can only restore payments from cancelled FRP where:

• the customer and partner are 6 weekly reporters, and
• have nil employment income to declare for the reporting period

For restoration outside of this circumstance, FHCOs are to refer the customer to the Farmers Assistance Line 132 316.

• Yes:
• collect the details for outstanding reporting periods before restoring FHA
• code any employment income and stimulate payment once restoration has occurred. Failure to do so will result in payment cancelling FRP
• go to Step 4
• No, go to Step 4

Before manually restoring a customer's payment, check for a Payment Determined Social Service Plan (SSP), if present finalise this first.

If applying another cancellation or suspension reason following the restoration, updates must be completed as separate Change of Circumstances. Example, the restoration before the cancellation.

To restore a customer's payment:

• Select the FHA Workflow from the Task Selector and select the FHA Benefit action
• Select the + Add button
• Key the required fields on the Benefit Action details screen:
• Benefit Type code Farm Household Allowance
• Date of Effect (DD/MM/YYYY) Check the suspension/cancellation date on XBS
• Benefit action RES
• Reason Reassessment
• Select Current or Previous Approved SSP
• Select the relevant SSP ID
• Comment Free text to explain the restoration reason
• Save and add receipt date and channel details
• If the restoration covers multiple chains, do the restoration action on the current approved chain and the Previous Approved chain. This ensures that the periods covered in each chain are assessed. These must be separate assessments

Once the follow-up SSP has generated:

• check Gross Payments Amount that overpayments or underpayments are correct
• review and approve the SSP.
  Depending on the date of effect for the restoration, arrears may generate. These could issue to the customer or be used to offset an undetermined or determined debt for the same period
• record details on a DOC use Fast Note - select Auto text > use Rural > SUS/CAN/RES > FHA Restored

A restoration letter will automatically issue to the customer.

Are arrears owing to the customer over the system arrears limit and are to be issued immediately using RTGS?

• Yes, go to Immediate payment by payment method Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS)
• No, any arrears owing to the customer will be released overnight. If the customer requests an immediate payment, see Immediate payment by payment method Real Time Gross Settlement (RGTS)