Youth Allowance at pending status (YAL/PSA) and dependent siblings 108-02010120

If assessing a customer’s claim or attempting to restore payment and parental income reduces the customer’s Youth Allowance (YA) rate to $0, check for any dependent sibling in the family pool who has been rejected Parental Income Too High (PIH) or cancelled PIH in the previous 13 weeks. Reassessment of the sibling’s claim or payment may be required.

Are there any siblings with a status of REJ-PIH or CAN-PIH in the previous 13 weeks?

• Yes, go to Step 2
• No, where there are no siblings who have recently claimed or cancelled, the customer’s claim must be manually rejected PIH. This will override the PSA status and should only be used where the Service Officer is confident that other siblings have not claimed or will not claim. Go to Step 9

Contact the sibling by phone to ask if they would like their rejected claim reassessed, or their YA restored, as they may now be entitled to payment.

Discuss the sibling’s circumstances to confirm if their details have changed since they last claimed or were on payment. Service Officers must make any relevant updates to the record and record details on a DOC of either the changes or that there have been no change in circumstances since claim or last payment.

Does the sibling want their claim reassessed or payment restored?

• Yes, if the sibling’s YA was:
• cancelled PIH, go to Step 3
• rejected PIH, go to Step 4
• No,
• record a Note/DOC on the sibling’s record with details of the discussion and the sibling’s choice to not have their claim reassessed/payment restored
• the customer’s claim must be manually rejected, go to Step 9, or
• finalise the customer’s restoration activity, this will likely result in the status changing to CAN-PIH. Record details of this decision in a Note/DOC. Procedure ends here

Contact the sibling by phone to determine if they would like their initial claim reassessed, or their Youth Allowance restored, as they may now be entitled to payment.

Was the sibling able to be contacted and want their claim reassessed or payment restored?

• Yes,
• finalise the activity on the customer’s record, claims will go to PSA
• an activity will ripple to the sibling’s record to restore the sibling’s payment
• check both records. If any incorrect arrears payments have been issued, stop the payment. Procedure ends here
• No, tell the sibling that because of a change in family circumstances, they may now be entitled; but a new claim is needed. For parental income to be assessed correctly against the family pool, the sibling claim needs to be processed within the PSA review period of the customer’s claim. Procedure ends here

For parental income to be assessed correctly against the family pool, the sibling’s claim needs to be processed within the PSA review period of the customer’s claim.

If siblings have different start dates, the latest start date must be coded in the Manual Start Date field on the Start Date Calculator (NDC) screen for any/all siblings whose Calculated start Date defaults to an earlier date. See Resources for examples.

Only Service Officers appropriately skilled in the claim type and scheduled for processing can reassess the rejected sibling’s claim.

• Staff who are trained in the sibling new claim payment type and are scheduled for processing, go to Step 5
• All other staff
  If the sibling claim is:
• an Australian Apprentice claim, create a Fast Note requesting reassessment of the claim. Select Auto Text option > Students, ABSTUDY & Apprentices > Claims - Apprentices > Reassess Rejected Apprentice Claim, transfer to region code NCA
• a student claim, select Auto Text option > Students, ABSTUDY & Apprentices > Claims - Students > Reassess Rejected Student Claim, transfer to region code SNN
• a jobseeker claim, refer to the appropriate local service centre who will reassess the sibling claim. Select Auto Text option > Generic > Claims > Reassess Rejected Claim, transfer to region code JCS
• See Request to reassess a rejected claim to request a rejected claim to be reopened and reassessed
• procedure ends here

If the sibling claim was:

• an Australian Apprentice claim, go to Step 6
• a job seeker claim, go to Step 8
• a student claim, go to Step 7

Commonwealth Registration identification

Check if the sibling’s registration identification (ID) is current. To do this in:

• Process Direct
• Go to the Apprentice Details (NAPD) screen
• Check if the Registration ID field is currently showing
• Customer First
• Go to Apprenticeship Details (NAPD) screen
• Check the Commonwealth Registration ID field

Is the Commonwealth Registration ID for the sibling current on the NAPD screen?

• Yes, go to Step 7
• No, claim cannot be reassessed until the ID is current
  Record a Note/DOC on the customer and sibling records with the details

• Make a note of sibling information previously recorded on the Start Date Calculator (NDC) table
• Re-index the sibling's claim
• Code NDC table with details from the previous claim
• Consider aligning the Entitlement Period End Day (EPED) of the sibling claim to the customer's record to minimise the risk of debts from occurring

Is the outcome a grant of YA?

• Yes,
• record details on a DOC of the new claim
• when the customer's status has transferred from PSA to CUR, annotate the PSA new claim DOC with the outcome of the claim. Make sure the DOC meets quality standards in service delivery
• check both records. If any incorrect arrears payments have been issued, stop the payment. Procedure ends here
• No, go to Step 9

Sibling claim is to be reassessed.

Re index the job seeker claim. See Processing Youth Allowance (YA) (job seeker) claims.

When a jobseeker online or customer assisted claim is re-indexed, the Online Participation workflow may present as already being completed or required. Irrespective of the status of the workflow being completed or required, the workflow must be re-run before the claim determination to re-activate job seeker registration and determine RapidConnect status, if appropriate.

Is the outcome a grant of YA?

• Yes,
• record details of the new claim on a DOC
• when the customer's status has transferred from PSA to CUR, annotate the PSA new claim DOC with the outcome of the claim. Make sure the DOC meets quality standards in service delivery
• check both records. If any incorrect arrears payments have been issued, stop the payment. Procedure ends here
• No, go to Step 9

• Go to the Benefit Action (BA) table and complete the following fields:
• Benefit Type code: 'YAL'
• Benefit Action: 'REJ'
• Reason: 'PIH'
• Finalise the claim. If assessing claims for more than one sibling and parental income is too high for any of them to be payable, repeat this step for each sibling
• Record details in the finalisation Note, including details of any conversation that took place and the reason for rejecting the claim

Procedure ends here.

A YA claim will have a status of YAL/PSA where the claim is finalised and the dependent YA customer’s parent(s)/guardian(s) income reduces YA to $0. This status will remain for one day (until the end of the next working date after the claim was processed). Once the PSA review period ends, the claim will reject Parental Income Too High (PIH) if there are no changes to parental income or the family pool which would make the customer payable.

In some circumstances the system cannot automatically reject these claims and their status will remain as YAL/PSA. This results in the allocation of a new claim (NCL) activity with a Review Reason: 'YAL Pending Sibling NCL Action'.

Before updating the customer's record, Service Officers must:

• investigate the customer's record to establish if at the time of claim, there are any siblings in the family pool or a sibling who has submitted a new claim, and
• check the combined parental income

Is the customer eligible for YA?

• Yes,
• Re-index the claim
• See, Assessing and coding student and Australian Apprentice claims for Youth Allowance (YA)
• Procedure ends here
• No, go to Step 3

If the customer is not entitled, reject YA:

Process Direct

• Go to the Benefit Action (BA) screen
• Select Add. In the Create Benefit Action screen, complete the fields:
• Benefit Type Code: YAL
• Benefit Action: REJ – REJECT
• Reason: PIH – Parental Income too High
• Date of Effect: as appropriate
• Select Save
• Complete the Receipt Date and Channel. Select Save
• Select Assess and address any errors/warnings
• Selecting Assess again
• Select Finish. Record details of the update
• Select Finalise
• Record the reason for decision in a Note
• Cancel the NCL activity from the Activity List (AL) screen

Customer First

• Select the NCL activity from the Activity List (AL) screen and cancel the activity
• Next: field, Benefit Action (BA)
• Service Reason: field, YAL - Youth Allowance
• Action: field, REJ - Reject
• Reason: field, PIH - Parental Income too High
• Effect Date: field, as appropriate
• Source: field, as appropriate
• Receipt Date: field, as appropriate
• Next: field, Activity Results (AR)
• Do not inhibit letter
• Finalise the activity
• DOC the record

Procedure ends here.