'With child' rate of benefit for non-principal carers with shared care 007-02050020

If a customer advises a new shared care arrangement or that their current arrangement has changed, see Shared care for social security payments.

For appropriately trained Smart Centre staff only

A single customer claiming or receiving one of the following payments shares the care of a child but is not considered the principal carer or the child.

A partnered 'with child' rate is also payable for Austudy and Youth Allowance.

• Austudy
• JobSeeker Payment (JSP)
• Special Benefit (SpB)
• Youth Allowance (YA)
• Farm Household Allowance (FHA)

Is the social security dependent child definition met?

One of the following must apply:

• the customer has legal responsibility for the child, or
• the child is not a dependent child of another person with legal responsibility and the child is wholly or substantially in the customer's care

For SpB the customer must have a shared care percentage of at least 30% for the 'with child' rate to be paid.

• Yes, go to Step 5
• No, go to Step 3

• Is the customer a single JSP who is caring for a young person aged 16-17 who would meet the dependent child definition except that the young person receives a social security benefit (or the child receives Disability Support Pension (DSP) for JSP customers)?
• Yes, the 'with child' rate can be paid. Go to Step 5
• No, go to Step 4

Is the customer eligible for the 'with child' rate because they have at least 14% care of a child under 16 years of age?

This only applies to the following customers:

• Single JSP customers
• Single or partnered YA (job seeker) customers

The customer must have legal responsibility (alone or jointly with another person) for the day to day care, welfare and development of the child or have a family law order or parenting plan which states the child is to supposed to live with the customer.

Other dependent child criteria must be met: Australian residence, not receiving a benefit/pension or payment under a labour market program, and income under the weekly income limit if they are not a full-time student.

The customer needs to demonstrate that:

• they have at least 14% care of the child in the current instalment period (one night per week during the fortnight), or
• a pattern of care shows they have at least 14% care of the child over a 14 or 28 day period (this should include at least part of the current instalment period)

The 14% is generally based on the number of nights in care, but may be met by the equivalent of four hours per day during the assessment period.

Is the customer eligible due to 14% rule?

• Yes, the 'with child' rate can be paid
• No, the customer is not eligible for the 'with child' rate. Shared care details must still be recorded

Record shared care details and advise each person caring for the child.

For coding details, see Shared care for social security payments.

For letter templates to use to advise carers, see the Resources page in Shared care for social security payments.

If the customer is not in receipt of FTB issue a Q888 inviting the customer to claim Family Tax Benefit (FTB). See Resources for standard text.

If the other carer is not a current customer, a separate record should be created for that person. If unable to obtain contact details for a non customer (although there is enough information to make a shared care determination) it must be shown that a reasonable effort was made to comply with the requirement for a written determination.

Note: If a customer has received Crisis Payment and a change has occurred, a manual reassessment of Crisis Payment may be required. For more information, see Reviewing and reassessing Crisis Payment (CrP).