Rejecting a claim for JobSeeker Payment (JSP) or Youth Allowance (YA) (job seeker) 106-07130210

A customer who has made a claim for an income support payment may not be eligible for payment because they do not meet the basic qualification, payability, or obligation provisions for payment. This can include a customer failing to attend an interview, failing to reply to correspondence or not considered to be unemployed.

Some JSP and YA (job seeker) customers may not want to comply with mutual obligation requirements, or they may have lodged an inappropriate, or incorrect claim. In these circumstances, claims should be rejected.

Disability Support Pension (DSP) may be suspended due to 'return to work' reasons. At the same time, the customer may claim and become current on another payment such as JSP or Parenting Payment (PP) if their income is below the income test threshold for that payment. These customers are not affected by multiple entitlement exclusion provisions.

Customers can voluntarily withdraw their claim. These claims should not be rejected.

Claims not yet determined can be withdrawn. Advise the customer once they withdraw their claim it cannot be reinstated.

Claims that have been determined cannot be withdrawn. Advise the customer their payment will need to be cancelled.

If a claim is granted but the customer has not yet received a payment, the claim will need to be manually rejected if the customer advises:

• they have returned to work before the Start Day of their claim, or
• they want to withdraw their claim

Record all details of the decision and the discussion with the customer in the rejection DOC.

Some rejections are coded manually on the Benefit Action (BA) screen and some the system will reject due to details coded in the claim.

When processing the new claim, an automatic rejection occurs when updating and verifying details. This is the preferred process to reject a claim and makes it easier if a customer contacts about the decision.

UTLAH assessments may be:

• conducted by a Services Australia social worker
• completed by the Over 18 UTLAH (O18) team, or
• automatically re-applied by the system

If a UTLAH assessment is in progress, do not reject the claim FSD (failed to supply documents). If it is not already, place the claim on hold pending the outcome of the UTLAH assessment.

A customer whose claim is rejected for a residence related reason may have the claim rejected based on information they have provided.

In some cases visa, citizenship and movement information from the Department of Home Affairs datalink may cause the claim to be rejected. Datalink information will take precedence over any conflicting information provided by the customer.

For more information, refer to residence assessments for customers claiming JSP and YA.

A customer with substantial assets could be in financial hardship because they are unable to rearrange their finances to give themselves an income through their assets.

For more details, see Assessment of assets hardship.

If a customer advises a change in their circumstances but does not give verification, do not include this information in the rejected claim. For example, they have separated from their current partner on the system.

All relevant information advised by the customer, but not verified, should be included in the rejection document.

When a claim is rejected, some advice is sent to the customer outlining the rejection reason(s) and their review and appeal rights.

A manual letter is needed if a Manual Follow-up (MFU) activity has been created on the Activity List (AL) screen after finalising the rejection activity.

Under some circumstances, claims lodged after the death of a customer can be assessed.