Transferring debts from customers to child care services pre 2 July 2018 007-18110804

It has been identified that a number of debts have been assigned to customers rather than non-compliant service providers. This problem typically arises where attendance reports are amended by a service after the relevant customer has undergone end of financial year reconciliation (which starts in 3rd week of July each financial year). There may also be cases where customers advise that the children have never attended care but there has been attendance lodged incorrectly.

On 24 July 2017, an IT enhancement was implemented by the Department of Education that means services must now apply to the Department of Education before they can amend/cancel attendances for previous financial years. This will reduce the potential outcome of debt being raised against customers.

Service open

In general, the customer is responsible for confirming details with the Approved Service Provider (ASP). Customers who disagree with the information provided by their ASP via the Child Care Management System (CCMS) are required to contact their ASP to discuss the issue in the first instance (if they are still open/operating).

The CCMS Support Team will deal with issues regarding incorrect or missing CCMS data after the recipient has attempted to resolve the issue with the ASP.

If the customer claims they never provided their Customer Reference Numbers (CRN) to the service in question (they were obtained fraudulently), these should be reported to the Department of Education via email (as per current CCMS protocols) in the first instance. See Step 1 of the Child never attended care – attendance status ‘Cancelled’ table on the Process page for the information to include in the email to the Department of Education, to enable them to investigate the issue.

If a correction of attendance is going to be made for a previous financial year that has already been reconciled, be aware of the changes that came into effect from 24 July 2017, where the submission and cancellation of attendance records for previous financial years is restricted. The Department of Education CCMS team will be required to provide access to the service to resubmit the data.

Note: The Department of Education will attempt to resolve issues with open service providers in the first instance as per current contact once processes. It should be noted that on occasion documentary evidence will be required from the customer which Services Australia may be requested to discuss with the customer.

Service is cancelled or closed

Where a service is cancelled for non-compliance or there are compliance indicators against a closed service, the Department of Education and Services Australia must ensure that debts are not/have not been incorrectly raised against customers in the event of cancelled attendance data post reconciliation. This also extends to attendance data where care had never occurred. See the Process page for common scenarios and the treatment of these cases.

See also Customer queries Child Care Management System (CCMS) information for more information.

There may be other instances where debts are being incorrectly assigned to individuals. Other scenarios can be complex and leave uncertainty as to who received the benefit of the fee reduction. As these scenarios unfold they will be work-shopped and adapted into a similar process.

Some of these scenarios may include, attendances amended to:

• reflect less hours of care
• backdate SCCB, GCCB and JET
• remove absences at the end of care