Using participation suspensions to engage Remote Australia Employment Service (RAES) participants with their requirements 001-10080000

RAES participants who have mutual obligation requirements are required to:

• attend compulsory appointments arranged with or by their provider
• contact the organisation the appointment is with before the scheduled start time if unable to attend and explain why they cannot attend
• meet other requirements in their Job Plan such as attending job interviews and undertaking job search where appropriate
• accept suitable paid work when it is offered

If a RAES participant does not attend a compulsory appointment or compulsory requirement in their Job Plan, and has not contacted beforehand with a suitable reason why they are unable to attend, compliance action may be initiated.

To further reinforce the importance of attending appointments and remaining engaged, a RAES participant's participation payment may be automatically suspended when one of the following occurs:

• a Non-Attendance Report (NAR) is received
• a connection failure is generated

Where automatic suspension occurs, the date of effect will be the later of:

• the start of the instalment period in which the NAR is received or failure generated
• the date paid to plus one (where part payment has already been made for the instalment period, for example, where weekly payments are made)
• the date reported plus one where reporting occurred on the same day but before receipt of the NAR
• 2 days after a suspension ends where that suspension is due to loss of payability (for example, imprisonment or departure overseas) and runs for part of the instalment period in which a NAR is received

A RAES participant's participation payment may be suspended 'Non-Attendance Report Received' (ANR) when a valid Non-Attendance Report (NAR) is received for non-attendance at a compulsory provider appointment (including re-engagement appointments).

In most cases, a RAES participant's payment is automatically suspended at the same time a NAR is accepted unless payment is already suspended for another reason.

Where payment has already been suspended for another reason:

• a NAR related suspension is automatically applied once the other suspension is lifted
• a Note/Display on Access (DOA) DOC will automatically be created on the RAES participant's record alerting that a NAR is outstanding

The ANR suspension is automatically applied once the other suspension is lifted.

An ANR suspension may be overwritten by any cancellation, or a suspension applied from a date before the ANR suspension date of effect.

A RAES participant's participation payment may be suspended 'Did not attend compulsory participation appointment' (APA) when a Participation Report is received from the provider indicating the RAES participant:

• has failed to attend a compulsory appointment they have arranged for the RAES participant with a third party provider, generating a connection failure
• has failed to enter into a Job Plan with their RAES provider, generating a connection failure
• has failed to provide sufficient job search efforts to their RAES provider, generating a connection failure

If a RAES participant's payment is not suspended when the failure is generated, the usual compliance measures will be used to re-engage the RAES participant and discuss the failure.

If the participant does not accept the reconnection requirement, payment will remain suspended.

Note: although Non-Attendance Reports (NAR) result in suspension of payment, and a Provider Appointment Report (PAR) may subsequently result in a failure investigation, PAR failures have different rules in regards to their generation and date of effect.

If a RAES Participant refuses to accept a reconnection requirement, and their payment is:

• currently suspended 'Did not attend compulsory participation appointment or activity' (APA), the suspension must remain on the record
• not currently suspended, then payment should be manually suspended by the Participation Solutions Team (PST) skilled Service Officer investigating the failure. See Suspension of payments (CLK) for details

Despite the RAES participant's refusal to re-engage, they should be notified of the reconnection requirement where possible. This means a re-engagement appointment must be booked and the RAES participant notified of the appointment, including the consequences for not attending. If the RAES participant changes their mind and attends the appointment booked in the Online Diary, a 'Restore payment' manual follow up activity will appear on their record to prompt restoration of their payment.

A RAES participant's participation payment will generally be cancelled 'Customer failed to re-engage' (CDR) if they do not comply with a reconnection or further reconnection requirement notified by Services Australia within 29 days of the requirement first being issued.

Where a RAES participant does not attend a re-engagement appointment notified by their provider, the provider may choose to initiate compliance action through the submission of a Non-Attendance Report (NAR), or a NAR and Provider Appointment Report (PAR).

Where a suspension 'Did not attend compulsory participation appointment or activity' (APA) has been applied and the RAES participant does not contact Services Australia to accept the reconnection requirement, the suspension will be maintained. Payment will be cancelled automatically after 13 weeks if not cancelled earlier for another reason.

Where a 'Non-Attendance Report Received' (ANR) suspension has been applied and the RAES participant does not contact their provider and/or, attend a re-engagement appointment where required, the suspension will be maintained until their payment is automatically cancelled DCP (Did not contact provider to re-engage) after 29 days.

If the RAES participant seeks an explanation or a review of a CDR or DCP cancellation, or it is identified that the cancellation should not have occurred, the record must be referred to the PST. Staff outside of the PST are not to restore a record that has been cancelled CDR or DCP.

PST-skilled staff may be required to restore a record because of a review of decision following a CDR or DCP cancellation where there is evidence to indicate the RAES participant:

• contacted and/or attended a re-engagement appointment however this was not identified before the CDR or DCP cancellation due to:
• incorrect or incomplete coding by Services Australia and/or the RAES provider, or
• a system issue or error
• was experiencing a major personal crisis and had absolutely no capacity to comply with any of their mutual obligation requirements in the 29 day period. For a DCP cancellation to warrant restoration, there would have to be significant factors that made it unreasonable for the RAES participant to contact their provider for the duration of the period. If the RAES participant was able to contact Services Australia, or tried to report during the period, it is unlikely that restoration should occur

Note: there must be evidence to confirm the original requirement has been met, or that this evidence must also ensure that despite an update made by a provider to an Online Diary result, the original requirement has been met or evidence exists confirming the RAES participant is no longer required to meet the original requirement.

If a RAES participant terminates a call, or the call is disconnected, before re-engagement can be discussed, the 'Did not attend compulsory participation appointment or activity' (APA) suspension should remain in place. Restoration should not occur until reconnection requirements are discussed and a re-engagement appointment booked where required.

Where a Non-Attendance Report (NAR) has been submitted the provider is responsible for re-engaging the RAES participant. Where a RAES participant contacts, staff are responsible for referring the RAES participant to:

• the PST for all compliance actions, apart from a NAR
• their provider if there is no compliance action outstanding

Following a 'Did not attend compulsory participation appointment or activity' (APA) suspension:

PST-skilled staff with a PFDEC or WNPPD security resource are responsible for:

• investigating any compliance action associated with the payment suspension and reconnecting RAES participants to their RAES provider during the failure investigation, when required
• manually restoring payment once the RAES participant has accepted the reconnection requirement or it is determined they no longer need to re-engage
• manually suspending a RAES participant's payment if they refuse to re-engage (where payment is not currently suspended)