Cancellation of Austudy or Youth Allowance (YA) students and Australian Apprentices 102-10020050

An Austudy or Youth Allowance (YA) student or Australian Apprentice payment may be cancelled automatically by the system, online by the customer or manually by a Service Officer:

• Automatic cancellation occurs when the student loses entitlement in some way, for example they are no longer studying, and the student end date is reached
• Manual cancellation occurs when a:
• Service Officer decides to cancel a customer's payment based on the applicable social security law, such as applying for another payment, or
• customer requests the cancellation over the phone or in person
• Eligible customers can request cancellation using the Cancel my current payment option online

Note: YA payments for students under 22 years of age will automatically cancel when they reach their student end date if they have not booked a student to job seeker participation interview appointment online using the 'Confirm course end date' task. Customers who are sent a 'You need to act now' course end date letter are required to book a participation interview online before their student end date is reached. If they do not respond to this letter by the recorded student end date, YA will cancel from the day after the recorded student end date.

Customers can voluntarily surrender their Income Support Payment (ISP) to claim PLDP. Make sure the customer understands they will not be entitled to add on payments such as, Rent Assistance or Energy Supplement, while receiving PLDP. A customer cannot be paid PLDP and an income support payment for the same period.

Note: customers who receive Family Tax Benefit (FTB) who surrender their income support payment must provide an estimate to ensure ongoing entitlement to FTB.

To be eligible for Pandemic Leave Disaster Payment:

• customers need to prove they are unable to attend work, and are therefore unable to earn an income
• they were likely to have worked during the period of self-isolation, quarantine or caring
• they have insufficient appropriate leave entitlements, including any pandemic sick leave, or will use up this leave during the 7-day period

For more details, see Pandemic Leave Disaster Payment.

If the customer has a correspondence nominee, and has requested the payment be cancelled, contact with the nominee is recommended before the cancellation is made. If the nominee arrangement is involuntary, for example a court appointed nominee, contact with the nominee is mandatory and payment cancellation must not be made without the nominee's consent.

Customers with a nominee are unable to access the online service to cancel their payment.

If an Austudy student, YA student or job seeker customer starts a full time Australian Apprenticeship, they may be able to continue to receive Austudy or YA as an Australian Apprentice.

If a customer who is required to notify employment income, makes the request to cancel their payment in person or by phone, without reporting their current fortnightly income, the Service Officer should tell the customer it is in their interest to report their income and take advantage of any Student Income Bank credits they may have. If they do not, they will not be paid any entitlement for the relevant pay period.

Changes to a dependent YA customer's circumstances that result in their payment being cancelled may affect the parental income applied to siblings who receive dependent ABSTUDY, Assistance for Isolated Children (AIC) or YA.