Raising Assurance of Support (AoS) debts 005-03060000

An AoS is a legally binding agreement between an individual(s) or organisation and Services Australia. In the AoS, the individual or organisation (the assurer) accepts responsibility to financially support someone (the assuree) who is applying to migrate to Australia on a specific type of visa. There can be a maximum of 3 individuals as part of a joint AoS. An organisation cannot be a joint assurer.

If an assuree receives a recoverable payment during the AoS period, a debt is raised against the assurer and they are liable to repay the amount.

If it is a joint AoS, all the assurers are equally liable. The AoS debt begins to accumulate from the date the assuree is granted a recoverable income support payment.

The AoS debt is raised as 'Determined' debt every 12 months or once the AoS period has expired.

If a permanent visa has a mandatory AoS requirement, a bank guarantee and term deposit must be established with the specific bond amount lodged at the Commonwealth Bank before the AoS is accepted. The bank guarantee and term deposit is cancelled at the end of the AoS period unless a recoverable AoS debt has been incurred. See AoS bank guarantee and term deposit.

If an AoS debt has been incurred, Services Australia draw from the bond held in the term deposit account every 12 months to repay the debt. This will stop when the bond is depleted, or the AoS debt stops accruing.

If the AoS debt is less than the bond amount, the balance is refunded to the assurer at the end of the AoS period.

If the debt is more than the bond amount, the normal recovery process will take place after the recovery of the bank guarantee every 12 months until the AoS period expires.

See Recovery of Assurance of Support (AoS) debts.

AoS debts are raised in Process Direct using AoS Yearly and Expiry Review work items. They have a status of 'For Manual Action'. If an assuree receives an AoS recoverable payment during their AoS period, Process Direct generates the following reviews as needed:

• AoS Quarterly Reviews
• Yearly Reviews, and
• Expiry Reviews

An AoS debt is raised when:

• there is a current AoS arrangement
• the assuree is not receiving sufficient support from their assurer, and
• the assuree is in receipt of an AoS recoverable payment

Services Australia automatically raise AoS debts for recovery 12 months from the date the assuree is first granted a payment, and continue either until the:

• end of the AoS period (1, 2, 4 or 10 years), or
• assuree no longer receives a recoverable income support payment

An AoS debt is first recovered from any lodged bank guarantee. If the bank guarantee has been depleted, the assurer must repay any outstanding debts.

Multiple AoS debts may be raised on assurer(s) record if there are 2 assurees and both claim a recoverable payment. Debts will first be recovered from the:

• AoS bond (debt reason ASB), or
• assurer (debt reason ASN) if there is no bond to recover

ASB and ASN debts are raised with separate debt IDs. If the assuree received multiple payment types, each payment type is raised with a separate debt ID.

AoS debt reasons

• ASB - Assurance of Support Bond Recovery (Auto) - Debt to be recovered from the bond
• ASN - Assurance of Support debt - automatic (Assurer) Auto - Debt to be recovered from the assurer
• ASO - Assurance of Support Recovery - old (Assurer) Manual - Debt to be recovered from the assurer

AoS processing staff:

• action the following reviews:
• AoS Quarterly Reviews
• Yearly Reviews, and
• Expiry Reviews
• need PROCESS DIRECT CSP AOS PROCESSING STAFF (AOS3) access role and NV_CLK_RVW AoS skill tag

Request access via ESSentials.

Joint assurers are equally liable to repay the entire AoS debt amount. For example, if there is 2 assurers and the AoS debt amount is $10,000, both are liable for the entire amount. The joint assurers can decide the amount they will each repay to finalise the debt.

Joint assurers debts are raised as multiple liability debt with the same debt IDs.

The quarterly, yearly, expiry and bond return reviews are not automatically generated when the assuree has been granted a recoverable payment on a multiple record instead of the assuree's AoS record.

Service officers need to raise a manual debt directly on the assurer's record in the Debt Management and Information System (DMIS) and issue manual debt letters. DMIS is accessed using Customer First or Customer Record.

When the AoS yearly or expiry reviews are generated in Process Direct and contains incorrect debt details, as a last resort AoS processing staff may need to:

• zero out the debt to finalise the review
• raise manual debts, and
• issue manual letters

See Table 2 for manual debts.

Once an assuree has received a recoverable payment for 12 months, a yearly review manual work item is created. This enables AoS processing staff to create an AoS debt in Debt Management and Information System (DMIS) for the assurer(s) to repay.

This review ensures an AoS determined debt is raised for all assurer(s) in the AoS case.

AoS debts are raised on the assuree's record every 12 months via an AoS Yearly Review in Process Direct. AoS processing staff will process the AoS Yearly Review (For Manual Action status). Once the Yearly Review is processed a:

• debt is raised on the assurer's record
• Statement of Account letter (Debt Statement) is issued
• full or partial Bank Guarantee Release letter with a bond amount is issued to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) to recover full or partial AoS debts to repay Services Australia, if applicable

An expiry review manual work item is only created for an AoS skilled service officer to action if:

• the AoS case has expired, and
• an assuree(s) has received a recoverable payment prior to expiry

This review ensures an AoS determined debt is raised for all assurer(s) in the AoS case. The expiry review will generate an AoS debt for the assurer(s) to repay.

If there is no recoverable payment amounts, the expiry review will auto complete and no user interact is needed.