Payment of School Meals Program (SMP) expenses from Income Management (IM) funds or Centrepay 103-01040030

School Meals Programs are usually a breakfast and/or lunch service for children attending school. Although primarily available in the Northern Territory, this program is available in various locations throughout Australia. The program aims to support improved school attendance, learning and engagement. Many also provide job opportunities and training for local community members.

SMP is available to all parents/carers, but the majority contribute through Income Management (IM) or Centrepay.

There are a number of School Meals Programs that provide children with food. These include school administered programs and the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) funded School Nutrition Projects (SNP).

All references to the School Meals Program refers to both NIAA and non-NIAA funded programs.

School Meals Programs are not available at all schools. If the child is enrolled at a school where a School Meals Program is available, Service Officers should discuss participation in the program with the parent/carer.

The cost of a School Meals Program varies from school to school and is kept to a minimum. When providers calculate the cost of delivering School Meals Programs, allowances are made for a level of absences and public holidays throughout the school year.

When paying for a School Meals Program from income managed funds, the fortnightly cost is annualised over the school year including school holidays. Payments are suspended from the customer's last Entitlement Period End Date (EPED) prior to the end of Term 4, and recommenced from the customer's first EPED after the commencement of Term 1 in the new school year.

Customers can choose to pay a lower amount than the actual annualised cost. However, the Service Officer must make the customer aware that they may be contacted by the Third Party Organisation (TPO) if their expense allocation is lower than the cost of the service.

Customers may request to make payments from income managed funds to repay amounts owed to Third Party Organisations (TPOs) for past periods. TPOs cannot request action be taken to repay amounts.

Additional payments can be made to a School Meals Program by increasing the customer's regular IM expense allocation, or making a one-off payment. However, the regular expense allocation cannot be extended beyond the Term 4 end date.

Payment for the School Meals Program would normally be made by the parent or carer of the child who receives Family Tax Benefit (FTB) for that child. However, if more flexible arrangements are in place around the care of the child, others in or outside the community (for example, grandparents and aunts) can also contribute to the cost of the School Meals Program for a particular child.

A customer's priority needs are reviewed throughout the period of IM. If the review identifies any changes to a customer's priority needs, IM expenses can then be updated. An assessment of priority needs must be completed:

• where there is a change in the customers' circumstances, for example, change of address
• when a work item is raised indicating priority needs must be checked
• when a customer requests a review of their priority needs

Where children are involved, it should always be considered that part of the income managed funds should be used for food, including School Meals Programs if such programs are available in a community.

School Meals Programs are not compulsory. However, if a parent does not direct any income managed funds towards a School Meals Program, the parent/carer needs to explain how they are meeting their child's daily food needs. If the Service Officer is not satisfied a priority need is being met, under legislation action must be taken to allocate the customer's income managed funds to certain priority needs.

Parents/carers are responsible for ensuring their child/ren attend school and collect their meals at the scheduled times, particularly breakfast.

Customers contributing to a School Meals Program through IM must notify Services Australia of any change in circumstances that affect a child's ability to participate in the program. For example, the child has transferred to another school or has been absent for an extended period.

Where a child is absent from school for periods of longer than five consecutive school days, it is the responsibility of the customer contributing to the program to notify the agency immediately of their change in circumstances. Once notified, the agency can suspend the payments for a period requested by the customer.

Customers must notify the agency if their child/ren transfers to another school or community, so payments can be transferred to the new provider or stopped if there is not a program in the new location.

Customers are not entitled to a refund of any contributions made to a School Meals Program arising from a child's temporary absence from school. Customers can arrange for meals to be collected from the school during short periods of absence.

The agency acknowledges extraordinary and unanticipated circumstances may arise where a customer may have a reasonable claim to request recovery of payments made to a School Meals Program. Due to circumstances beyond their control, customers may have been unable to notify the agency of an extended absence, or transfer to another school.

If a customer believes they have such a claim, the usual Income Management recovery process will be applied.

In addition to normal Services Australia’s review processes, customers can request reviews of IM decisions, including the allocation and management of their IM funds.

The Resources page contains:

• action to take when an income managed customer requests to cease a regular expense allocation to the School Meals Program
• descriptions of the override reasons used when an income managed customer requests to cease a regular expense allocation to the School Meals Program
• relationship codes - a list of relationship codes and descriptions for the relationship between the customer and the child when adding a School Meals Program expense allocation
• links in Office Locator for the National Business Gateway (NBG) Processing Team, NIAA and non-NIAA funded Third Party Organisations (TPOs)
• a link to Northern Territory (NT) school term dates

Customers can make School Meals Program contributions via Centrepay. Customers should confirm the fortnightly amount payable with their local provider, as these payments are generally not annualised out over the school year.

Deductions made to a School Meals Program via Centrepay are ongoing unless cancelled or suspended by the customer or the SMP provider. Deductions will only cease at the end of the school year if the customer requested an end date be added to their deduction. Customers can also add a target amount to their deductions meaning the deductions will cease when the target amount is met. It is the customer’s responsibility to notify the agency when they want to suspend or end their deductions. Customers may use any of the following tools to manage their deductions:

• Express Plus mobile app
• Online account through myGov
• Contacting the agency by phone or in person
• Contacting their SMP provider

When a customer's payments are no longer income managed or they have moved to enhanced IM, may choose to transfer their IM expense allocation to Centrepay. Third Party Organisations (TPOs) in the Northern Territory will not incur any Centrepay fees to receive payments via this method.