Payment of fines from income managed funds 103-01040040

What action is being taken?

• Request for:
• a new allocation
• increasing an allocation
• making a one-off payment
• transferring from Centrepay to Income Management
• go to Step 2
• To vary or suspend an existing allocation, see Table 2, Step 5
• To cease an existing allocation, see Table 2, Step 6

A customer's priority needs must be reviewed and recorded via the Priority Needs Expenses workflow:

• at the initial assessment interview
• when a Work Item has been raised that indicates a priority needs review is required
• when the customer has had a change in circumstances, for example a change of address
• at the customer's request

Note: details of the most recent Priority Needs review can be viewed via the Income Management Summary screen or selecting the Priority Needs hyperlink on the Expense Management Summary screen. Update any changes on the Priority Needs screen if applicable.

Discuss the priority needs of the customer before making any changes to Income Management expenses.

While a customer and their family's circumstances will differ, Service Officers must always consider how the following basic items are to be paid:

• food, including School Meals Programs (if applicable)
• housing for example, rent, loan repayments
• clothing and footwear
• utilities for example, electricity, gas, water, sewerage
• medical 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 Program if available in the customer's area.

Other priority items should be considered after the basics items are being met.

For more information on priority needs, see Determining a person's priority needs for Income Management.

When a review of priority needs has been conducted, this must be recorded on the Priority Needs screen via the Expense Management Summary screen.

Establish from information provided by the customer, whether there is an immediate prospect of imprisonment if the fine is not paid.

Is there an immediate prospect of being imprisoned?

• Yes, go to Step 4
• No, go to Step 5

Where a person has an immediate prospect of being imprisoned for non-payment of a fine and does not have any other funds from which the fine can be paid, the assessment of whether priority needs have been met should be made having regard only to the immediate unmet needs of the person, their partner, their children or their other dependants (rather than current and reasonably foreseeable).

The immediate unmet needs would normally relate to food, housing, school meals and health needs. If these immediate priority needs have been met, then the fine can be paid from the person's income managed funds.

Can the fine be paid from the Income Management account?

• Yes, see Table 2, Step 1
• No, go to Step 6

Can the customer afford to pay for the fine out of their remaining discretionary funds?

• Yes, process as a Centrepay deduction using the Centrepay script. See Starting, changing and cancelling a Centrepay deduction at the request of a customer. Procedure ends here
• No, go to Step 7

Offer the customer alternative assistance:

• consider referral to social worker
• encourage customer to contact relevant organisation to renegotiate arrangements
• record details on a DOC

Procedure ends here.

Does the customer wish to make a lump sum payment or pay the fine by instalments?

• for lump sums, go to Step 3
• for instalments, go to Step 2

The customer must first obtain the consent of the relevant organisation for the fine to be paid by instalments before payment can be made from Income Management funds.

No approval has been given

If approval has not been given, no payment can be made until approval is provided. Advise customer to seek approval for fine to be paid by instalments. Consideration should be given to refer the customer to a social worker who may be able to assist with renegotiating the arrangements with the relevant organisation.

Until approval is provided, the procedure ends here.

Approval has been given

If approval has been given, go to Step 3.

Once payment of the fine from Income Management funds has been approved an Expense Request must be sent to IMPACT (IMT) with the following information:

• name and telephone number of the relevant organisation
• the customer's Third Party Organisation (TPO) account or reference number
• the amount of the lump sum payment if applicable
• the regular payment amount that has been approved by the relevant organisation if paying by instalments
• the target amount if payment by instalments

Important: where the customer is transferring regular court fine payments from Centrepay to Income Management, unless the organisation is a contracted Third Party Organisation, the Service Officer must also cease the existing Centrepay.

Where Service Officers are unable to cease the Centrepay deduction, send a Fast Note detailing the conversation with the customer to transfer the Centrepay deduction to an Income Management expense. Select Auto Text, use Income Management > Update > Transfer to Income Management expense.

Procedure ends here.

There can be serious consequences for customers that do not maintain an existing payment arrangement including loss of license or even imprisonment.

If a customer requests to cease or decrease an existing payment arrangement, the Service Officer should discuss with the customer how they are going to meet their payments in future. The customer should be strongly encouraged to contact the relevant organisation to come to an alternative arrangement.

To see the target amount click on the expense in the Regular Expenses section of the Expense Management Summary screen which will show how much is left to pay on the fine.

Services Australia staff have a duty of care to ensure that these payments continue. The Service Officer must clearly DOC their reasons when making any adjustments to fine payments (include whether these are being met by either Centrepay or Income Management).

Note however, that court fines are not priority needs and Services Australia is not authorised to make payments to court fines without the customer's consent.

If court fines are being paid via Centrepay, see Starting, changing and cancelling a Centrepay deduction at the request of a customer.

• To vary or suspend a regular court fine allocation, go to Step 5
• To cease a regular court file allocation, go to Step 6

• Select expense and option 'Suspend'
• Start Date: enter the start date of the suspension
• End Date: enter the date of suspension

The Service Officer must add Notes to the Expense Request (via the Expense History screen) to detail the action taken and reason for suspension.

To vary a regular court fine expense:

Note: EPED rules apply when varying expenses for Income Management.

• Select expense and option 'View/Vary'
• Amount $: enter amount to be paid
• Target Amount $: If varying an existing target amount the date of the expense must not be changed. The system will automatically apply the change from the next instalment date
• Frequency option: update only if a change is needed
• End date: leave blank unless the customer nominates a specific end date. This field will be hidden if varying a target amount

For regular manual expenses, the Service Officer must add Notes to the Expense Request (via the Expense History screen) to detail the action taken and reason for variation.

Procedure ends here.

If ceasing a regular manual expense, the Service Officer must add Notes to the Expense Request (via the Expense History screen) to confirm the expense ceased and reason before ceasing the expense via the Expense Management Summary screen. (Notes cannot be added after a manual expense has been ceased).

• Select expense and option 'Cease'
• Repeat for each individual expense allocation change then select 'Finalise'

The Priority Needs workflow is triggered to automatically run after varying or ceasing a customer's regular expense. For more information, refer to Changes to Income Management priority needs.