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

Has a School Meals Program provider or a school contacted to request cancellation of a customer's School Meals Program allocations?

• Yes, see Step 5 in Table 3
• No, go to Step 2

In Customer First, go to the Customer Details (CRN/BP) screen.

Check the benefit status line (BSt) to identify if the customer is welfare quarantined:

• IMM if they are on income management, go to Step 3
• EIM if they are on enhanced IM. Customers on enhanced IM can make School Meals Program contributions via Centrepay. See Starting, changing and cancelling a Centrepay deduction at the request of a customer
• Customers not on IM or enhanced IM can make School Meals Program contributions via Centrepay. See Starting, changing and cancelling a Centrepay deduction at the request of a customer

Select from the following:

• To decide if the School Means Program is relevant to the customer, go to Step 4
• For the NBG process to commence School Meals Program expense allocations at the commencement of Term 1, go to Step 4
• To add or vary a regular expense allocation or to create a one-off expense for School Meals Program, see Step 1 in Table 2
• If the customer is requesting to be exited from the School Meals Program, see Step 1 in Table 3
• If the customer is requesting funds be recalled from a School Meals Program and/or seeking reimbursement of unspent funds, see Step 2 in Table 3

Ask the customer if they are already contributing to the School Meals Program in another way (for example, discretionary funds, Centrepay), or someone is paying on behalf of the child.

• Yes, the customer is contributing to a School Meals Program and payments are made:
• via Income Management funds, review existing allocations. Confirm with the customer the current allocation still meets their needs (that is, confirm children, school, amount paid). Make updates if required. Procedure ends here
• via Centrepay, discuss transferring the deduction to an IM expense, if required:
  - if transferring to Income Management expense, go to Step 9
  - if Centrepay deduction to continue, remind customer that deductions are not suspended at the end of the school year. It is the customer’s responsibility to notify Services Australia when a Centrepay deduction needs to be suspended or cancelled. Customers can do this online, on their mobile device or by contacting the agency
• Review the Centrepay deduction to ensure the child/ren's name have been recorded in the Org Customer Account Ref field and update if required. Procedure ends here
• from discretionary funds, other income, or by a third party, procedure ends here
• No, go to Step 5

As School Meals Programs fall under the basic category of food, participation should be discussed during the Initial Assessment interview or when reviewing priority needs.

To decide if the School Meals Program is relevant to the customer, select the Families Summaries in the left hand menu in Customer First to check if the customer has school aged children in their care.

Also ask the customer if there are any school aged children they provide care for.

Does the customer have school aged children or are there any children the customer would like to make a School Meals Program expense allocation for?

• Yes, go to Step 6
• No, procedure ends here

Check the community details in Office Locator to determine if there is a School Meals Program available in the community/school the child attends. As some communities have more than one provider, searches by Third Party Organisation (TPO) name via the TPO Search option are not recommended. The Resources page contains a link to Office Locator to display providers that service a community.

Take note of any specific coding instructions for the relevant School Meals Program provider in Office Locator, in particular the Customer Reference Number (CRN) of the TPO or the school name.

Does Office Locator confirm a School Meals Program is available at the school the child attends?

• Yes, go to Step 8
• No, go to Step 7

Does the customer wish to set up a School Meals Program expense allocation to a school or community not in Office Locator?

• Yes, complete an Expense Request (for more information, see Coding Income Management expenses) ensuring the following information is included in the Expense Notes: field:
• school name
• location
• whether the customer is aware of a School Meals Program operating at the school
• full names of all children
• the amount the customer wishes to pay for each child
  Note: on receipt of the Expense Request, NBG will notify Income Management Policy Helpdesk of manual payment request for a School Meals Program. Appropriate action will be taken to contact the TPO and set them up as a School Meals Program TPO
  Procedure ends here
• No, procedure ends here

Tell the customer about School Meals Program and its benefits:

• the food is good value and costs very little compared to buying similar meals from the local store
• it’s a consistent, predictable expense to have paid without needing to think about it
• peace of mind knowing children will receive meals every day at school
• can help to improve student's school attendance
• everyone receives the same meals
• receiving regular meals may improve concentration
• school teachers can concentrate on preparing classes and not be involved in organising meals for students
• when paying via IM, allocations are not paid during the end of year school holidays (that is from the end of Term 4 the previous year to the start of Term 1 the following year)

Contributions to a School Meals Program are voluntary

School Meals Program expense allocations would generally be made by the person who receives Family Tax Benefit (FTB) for that child.

If a parent does not direct any of their income managed funds towards a School Meals Program, it is important the Service Officer ensures the child's needs are being met. This can be done by:

• asking the customer to explain how the child’s daily needs are being met
• checking IM and voluntary deductions for food provisions

Note: customer's explanations should be taken on face value. Under no circumstances should customers be asked to provide documentary evidence of how they are meeting the child's daily food needs.

Under legislation, if a Service Officer is not satisfied a priority need is being met, action must be taken to allocate the customer's income managed funds as required. This may include referral to a social worker, an Income Management Contact Officer or the Income Management Policy helpdesk for an independent evaluation of the situation. Any decision should be documented on the customer’s record.

The customer must be advised the following in relation to their School Meals Program expense allocation:

• Payments will continue to be made over mid-year school holidays, and this reduces the amount paid each fortnight
• Payments will be automatically stopped at the end of the school year
• They only need to contact the agency if their circumstances change, including care of the child, or enrolment at a different school
• When providers calculate the cost of School Meals Programs, allowances are made for a level of absences and public holidays throughout the school year
• If a child is sick at home, the parent/carer can collect the meal from the school and take it to the child
• If the child is going to be absent for more than five consecutive days the customer must advise Services Australia immediately so the School Meals Program expense allocation can be suspended. The agency will not generally recover funds for short- term absences

Select the Expense Management Summary screen

• To add a regular expense, select add regular from the dropdown list. Note: if the customer receives multiple payments, indicate to which payment type the expense is to be aligned to, ensuring sufficient funds are available from the selected payment. Go to Step 2
• To vary an existing School Meals Program expense, select the expense under the Regular Expenses twisty, then the View/Vary option. Go to Step 5
• To add a one-off allocation, select add one-off expense from the dropdown list, Go to Step 6

Search via one of the following:

• TPO Name: field, enter name if CRN is not known and click on Find
• TPO CRN: field, enter CRN, if known, and click on Find
• School name: field, enter name of school if known and click on Find
• Expense Category: field, select IMS Meals Program
• State: field, select the relevant state for the TPO
• Keyword: field, keywords can be used in this field to search for a TPO such as 'school' or 'Titjikala', the search results will display all TPOs with this word in their name. The best option is to search for TPO using Office Locator and then search for TPO via TPO CRN

Select the correct TPO from the Expense Management TPO List. Note: the TPO may be listed a number of times so ensure the TPO with the correct service reason of IMS Meals Program is selected.

School Meals Program providers have school and cost details attached to their records. These details can be viewed on the 'OSSN' screen in the TPO record. Where this is not complete for a particular provider and a Service Officer attempts to add a new School Meals Program expense allocation (IMS) the following error occurs: 'E525PI' - TPO has no schools data on OSSN.

• If this error occurs, see Step 4 in Table 3
• If no error, select Continue. Go to Step 3

TPO Details section:

• TPO CRN: auto-populated from TPO Search Inputs
• TPO Name: auto-populated from TPO Search Inputs
• Expense Frequency: defaults to fortnightly, however can be changed to weekly at customer's request. If paying weekly, ensure there are sufficient funds on both weeks to prevent undelivered expenses
• Aligned to: auto-populated to customer's benefit type. When the customer has multiple payments, it is auto-populated using the selection made when adding a regular expense

Linked Children and SMP Child Expense section

This section lists all children aged between 4 and 18 currently linked to the customer on the Child Selection (CHS) screen.

• Child CRN: field, auto-populated with child's CRN
• First Name: field, auto-populated with child's first name
• Surname: field, auto-populated with child's surname
• School: field, drop down list to select relevant school
• Age Today: field, auto-populated with the current age of the child
• Relationship: field, auto-populated with the relationship between the customer and the child. The Resources page contains a table of the relationship codes and descriptions
• If the customer wishes to pay for a School Meals Program for a child not listed, click the 'Add Child' button. Go to Step 4
• If the child is listed, go to Step 5

Before linking a child, ensure the customer has the correct details about the child's name and date of birth. The child's record should be found first to confirm these details.

Link Child (LCH) Screen

Search for the child record via surname, first initial and date of birth.

National Index Name List (IL)

• If the child's record has been found, click on the child's name and confirm selection on the Link Confirmation (LC) screen. Select Continue
• If the child cannot be located, and the child does not already have a CRN, navigate to the Add Child (ACHI) screen to create a new record for the child. Enter child's details and press [Enter]

Note: care must be taken to ensure a thorough search for a child's record has been undertaken to avoid duplication of records. For example, searching via other known names.

The linked child will now be displayed on the Child Selection (CHS) screen on the customer's record. On selecting [Enter] again, it will return to the School Meals Expense Summary screen.

• To add a regular expense, go to Step 5
• To create a one-off expense, go to Step 6

To record or update (vary) details of School Meals Program expense allocations for each child, complete the following fields:

• School: for each child select the school they attend (options in the dropdown list will only include schools serviced by the selected TPO)
• Expense Amount: field will default to the amount for the particular school selected. Discuss the amount with the customer. The customer may wish to pay a different amount because they are in arrears or because someone else is contributing to the cost of the program. If required, override amount. An override reason must be selected. The Resources page contains a table of the override reasons.
  Note: where a customer requests to pay a higher amount to meet any arrears owed to the TPO, it is their responsibility to advise when the higher amount is to end
• Override reason: mandatory field when a change to the set amount is selected. An appropriate reason for override amount must be selected. Otherwise, no selection required

Expense Summary section

This section provides a summary of the expense allocation details for the TPO as per the information entered in the 'Linked Children' and 'IMS Expense' section. The following fields will be auto-populated:

• Next payment for this expense: date School Meals Program expense allocation will next be paid to TPO
• Final payment for this expense: date of final School Meals Program expense allocation to TPO (the system automatically calculates the customer's final EPED/EPED+1 prior to the end of Term 4)
• Amount: total amount of School Meals Program expense allocations that will be paid to TPO. Note: one TPO may provide School Meals to multiple schools. If a customer has children at multiple schools that are serviced by one TPO, these will appear as one total expense allocation to the particular TPO. View the individual details of the expense allocation per child in the ‘Linked Children’ and Expense Summary section

Repeat steps until all School Meals Program expenses allocations are coded for each required child.

As the customer's regular expenses are being updated, a priority needs discussion should be recorded, noting how the School Meals Program is now being paid. For more information, see Changes to Income Management priority needs. Go to Step 7.

TPO Details section

To record details of one-off expense for each child, select the child and complete the following fields:

• School: For each child select the school a one-off expense is required to be paid for (options in the dropdown list will only include schools serviced by the selected TPO)
• Expense Amount: field will default to the fortnightly set amount for school. If required, override the amount for the one-off expense allocation. The Resources page contains a table of the override reasons

Expense Summary section

This section provides a summary of the one-off expense allocation details for the TPO as per the information entered in the Linked Children and IMS Expense section.

• This one off expense will be paid on: today's date
• Amount: total amount of the one-off expense allocation to the TPO for all children the one-off expense allocation has been coded for

If priority needs have been reviewed with the customer, record the Priority Needs Discussion. For more information, see Changes to Income Management priority needs

When all updates are completed for all children, finalise the activity.

Select continue and review the Income Management Summary screen to confirm:

• direct credit payments are showing in the 14 day balance details
• the School Meals Program expense is showing as provisional under Regular or One Off Expenses
• the available balance has adjusted correctly, taking into account any regular or one-off payments and/or requests

If there are Work Items that need to be actioned, these will be displayed on the Income Management Summary screen in the Existing Work Items sections.

If Work Items cannot be actioned within the workflow, investigate and action while the customer is present, once the workflow has been finalised. For more information about Work Items, see Income Management and BasicsCard Work Items.

Finalise the activity on the Income Management Summary page.

A DOC will be generated and completed by the workflow and can be annotated with any additional information needed.

Only cease a School Meals Program expense allocation once the customer has satisfactorily explained how they are meeting the priority need in another way, or if it is no longer relevant.

See the Resources page for a table of what action is to be taken when an income managed customer requests to cease a regular expense allocation to the School Meals Program.

Process to Cease an IMS expense allocation

Launch the Expense Management Summary screen.

Select the listed IMS expense allocation that requires updating and select cease, which will go to the School Meals Expense Summary screen.

The expense allocation will auto default to zero. An appropriate override reason must be given to explain the reason the expense allocation is no longer required at that school. See the Resources page for an overview of override reasons.

Select Continue which will go back to the Expense Management Summary screen.

Include the reasons why the School Meals Program deduction was ceased on a DOC.

Procedure ends here.

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. 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. Customers can also arrange for meals to be collected from the school during short periods of absence.

To avoid any overpayment to a TPO, customers should advise Services Australia of any change in their child’s circumstances as soon as possible. However, 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. For example, customers may have been unable to notify the agency of an extended absence, or a transfer to another school due to circumstances beyond their control.

If a customer believes they have such a claim, the standard Income Management recovery process will be applied. See Recall of Income Management funds from a Third Party Organisation (TPO).

Procedure ends here.

For National Business Gateway (NBG) staff only.

• NBG to obtain from the Income Management program team a list of customers who had a School Meals Program allocation at the end of Term 4 of the previous year
• School Meals Program expense allocations are to be established for all customers identified from management information unless clearly identified that the School Meals Program is not continuing (for example, Fast Note and change of care)
• School Meals Program expense allocations start date will auto-default to the first EPED/EPED+1 of Term 1
• School Meals Program expense allocation frequency to match that used in the previous year (weekly or fortnightly)
• School Meals Program expense allocation end date will auto-default to the last EPED/EPED+1 of Term 4

Procedure ends here.

If Service Officers receive the error 'E525PI - TPO has no schools data on OSSN', details are to be referred to the Income Management Helpdesk via email for investigation.

Service Officers should obtain as much information as possible about the expense allocation the customer is wishing to establish or vary and include these details in their email:

• Name of the child the customer wants to make an IMS expense allocation for
• Name of the school the child is attending
• Name of the TPO that provides the School Meals Program (if known by the customer)
• Amount the customer wishes to pay the provider. Note: the Service Officer needs to determine if the amount the customer wishes to pay is different compared to the amount listed in Office Locator. If this is the case, then the Service Officer needs to include the reason for the change/variation in order for NBG to record the correct override code once the coding can be completed. The Resources page contains a table of the override reasons
• Start date of any new or varied allocation

NBG will ensure the school and cost details are completed against the provider's record and set up the expense for the customer.

Procedure ends here.

A School Meals Program provider or school can request cancellation of a School Meals Program deduction, and no consultation is required with the customer, in the following circumstances:

• the child is no longer enrolled at the school
• the child has changed and is enrolled at a new school, but no notification has been sent to the previous school where School Meals Program deductions are being directed

Note: if a child is not attending school but is still enrolled, for example, parent is having difficulty making the child go to school, the deduction should continue in anticipation of the child attending their enrolled school. The parent can collect meals from the school during periods of absence.

Service Officers who receive a request from a School Meals Program provider or school are to send a Fast Note requesting cancellation of the deduction. Select Auto Text, use Third Party Organisations > Update > Request for cancellation of deduction. Include the telephone contact details for the provider or school and the name of the person making the request.

NBG will confirm the person is an authorised representative of the School Meals Program provider or school, before actioning:

• If the request meets the guidelines outlined above, NBG will cancel the expense allocation and create a Display on Access (DOA) DOC on the customer’s record requesting cancellation of the deduction be discussed with the customer at their next contact
• If the request does not meet the guidelines outlined above, the expense is not to be cancelled. NBG will create a DOA DOC on the customer’s record requesting the School Meals Program deduction be discussed with the customer at their next contact and appropriate updates made as requested by the customer