Family Tax Benefit (FTB), Parental Leave Pay (PPL) and/or Child Care Subsidy (CCS) customer separates 277-50080050

There are key steps a customer should consider when separating in order to protect their personal details. See Separating Safely - protecting personal details.

A separate procedure applies if the customer or separated partner receives an income support payment.

Verification of separation is not required for a customer who is in receipt of FTB/CCS only unless they continue to reside with their ex-partner (SUOR). In these cases verification of separation occurs through the SUOR assessment using a SS293 - Relationship details - Separated under one roof form. A MOD S is not required.

Verification of separation is not required for a customer who is in receipt of PPL only.

SUOR assessments are done using a Relationship details - Separated under one roof (SS293) form/s.

SUOR assessments can occur when a relationship has broken down and the parties are 'living separately and apart' on a permanent or indefinite basis but remain residing under the same roof. For example, a separated customer lives with their ex-partner. Sharing may be temporary or permanent for a variety of reasons.

In determining separated under one roof, each party will need to provide details of their current living arrangements that supports a conclusion that a genuine separation has occurred and there are no plans to resume the relationship.

Note: if a customer is advising they are separated under one roof, always ask a Family and Domestic Violence (FDV) Risk Identification Question before issuing the Details of your child's care arrangements (FA012) and Relationship details - Separated under one roof (SS293):

Are you, or has anyone else been, concerned about your or your family's safety?

• If yes, explore further as per the Family and Domestic Violence Support Model (FDVSM) to clarify the customer's circumstances. Consider if it is appropriate to issue the FA012 and SS293 to customer's ex-partner. In some instances where there is FDV, issuing the forms could put the customer's safety at risk
• If no, tell the customer of the forms that will issue to their ex-partner and ask the additional question: Is there any other reason we should not send these forms to your ex-partner to confirm your separation?
• If yes, explore further as per the FDVSM to clarify the customer's circumstances. Consider if it is appropriate to issue the FA012 and SS293 to customer's ex-partner. In some instances where there is FDV, issuing the forms could put the customer's safety at risk
• If no, issue the forms

SUOR does not apply to PPL only customers.

There is a requirement for FTB and/or CCS customers to provide details of address, income, child custody, child care and child support after separation to make sure payments are correct.

When a customer advises they have separated from their partner, the Service Officer must check whether the following customer details have changed:

• Their address or accommodation details. Staff must key 'No' in the Make partner the same: field to make sure the address update is not applied to the partner record
• Payment destination details. Staff must make sure their bank account details are correct and ask if they wish to have payments made to the same account. If they have payments made to a joint account, tell them that the former partner will have access to their payment and they should open an account in their own name. See Changing payment destination
• Entitlement to an income support payment or additional services or benefits
• Income estimate
• Children in their care. For children of the former relationship remaining in their care, check that they are aware of any initial maintenance action that needs to be taken and whether any child support arrangement has been made

Note: a Maintenance Action Requirement Notification (MARNL) letter should be automatically issued to a customer or their current partner if they are required to take reasonable action to get child support for a child in their care and they are within their 91 day Deciding Maintenance Action (DMA) period. A reminder MARNL is also sent to them 21 days after the initial MARNL is sent if:

• they are still within the DMA period
• no child support assessment data has been received, and
• the initial letter was sent on or before day 63 of the DMA period

The MARNL letter is displayed as a 'NOTFAOOSC' letter on the History Summary (HS) screen.

• Nominee arrangement. If a customer, who has their partner appointed as their nominee, advises they have separated they must be asked at first point of contact if they wish to cancel the nominee arrangement. A request for cancellation of the arrangement must be actioned immediately. The request does not have to be in writing

Before 1 July 2016, there was a known issue that affected customers who were re-separating from a person against whom they previously had a child support case. In some cases, rather than reverting to No Maintenance Action (NMA) at the end of their 91 day Deciding Maintenance Action (DMA) period, child/ren incorrectly had a 'Reconciliation' (RHH) MAT exemption code applied, resulting in the child/ren being treated as permanently exempt from the MAT and payments made to the customer at above the base rate of FTB Part A.

From 1 July 2016, the RHH MAT code was enhanced to make sure that if a customer re-separates, RHH will no longer automatically apply after the DMA period.

Customers who incorrectly held the RHH code as at 1 July 2016 were reassessed and had a new automatic MAT code of Pseudo DMA Event (PDE) applied to their records from 1 July 2016 only. This stimulated a Maintenance Action Requirement Notification (MARNL) letter to be issued to the customers, as it would have with a DMA period.

As with DMA processing, where they do not take action within 21 days of the first MARNL being sent, a second MARNL is sent. If they did not take reasonable action to get child support within 91 days of 1 July 2016, their MAT was automatically updated to NMA at the end of the 91 days.

Note:

• The clean up to insert 'PDE' for customers who incorrectly held the RHH MAT code as at 1 July 2016 only targeted customers where the last un-deleted MAT code before the incorrect RHH was 'DMA'
• Customers who had a MAT code other than DMA preceding the RHH were not selected for the clean up and therefore may still retain the incorrect RHH, until a new DMA event occurs post 1 July 2016
• Any customers identified as potentially incorrectly holding the RHH MAT code post 1 July 2016 should be referred to Child Support Unit (CSU) to determine if the RHH is correct. Where the RHH is incorrect, CSU will refer the case to ICT to have 'PDE' manually coded

'PDE' is an automatic code that is displayed on the Maintenance Action (MNMA) screen and results in DMA on the Maintenance Action Result (MNMR) screen. From the December 2016 release, PDE became a manual code that can only be entered by staff with relevant access.