Coding Income Management expenses 103-01040070

A customer may contact asking for a change to their Income Management expenses such as:

• adding, varying, or cancelling a regular expense to a contracted or un-contracted Third Party Organisation (TPO)
• asking for a one-off payment to a contracted or un-contracted TPO
• adding, varying, or cancelling a regular BasicsCard expense (for BasicsCard Partial Payment method only)
• transferring a Rent Deduction Scheme or Centrepay deduction to an Income Management expense
• asking for a lump sum payment towards a Services Australia debt using income managed funds
• asking for payment of a personal debt using income managed funds (for example, where priority needs have been met by the use of a personal credit card)
• paying for travel for themselves or family members by air, rail, bus or another approved method
• asking for a one-off purchase for a motor vehicle

Requests not covered in this procedure include customers:

• accessing funds while travelling
• paying court fines using Income Management funds, or
• adding or varying Schools Meals Program expenses

Under the Child Protection Income Management (CPIM) measure, the referring authority may recommend where income managed funds should be directed. Social workers who assess a customer as Vulnerable for the Vulnerable Welfare Payment Recipient (VWPR) Income Management can also recommend how income managed funds could be directed.

Service Officers do not have to comply with the recommendation, but should document how these needs will be met when conducting an assessment of reviewing a customer's priority needs.

When commencing, varying or ending a regular expense, Service Officers should make sure the customer's priority needs continue to be met. For more information, see Changes to Income Management priority needs.

Any review of priority needs should include a review of voluntary deductions (Centrepay and Rent Deduction Scheme payments). This will identify whether any deductions can be changed to an Income Management expense, or a duplication of payments.

To do these reviews, staff need to understand how to determine a customer's priority needs.

Whenever a customer changes their Entitlement Period End Date (EPED), staff should update regular expenses to align with the change, as this does not happen automatically.

Payments to consumer lease providers can be paid from the Income Management funds. However, before starting any deductions, tell the customer about resources available to help them make a decision about consumer leases and alternatives which include:

• using the Rent vs buy calculator
• layby
• No Interest Loan (NILs)
• applying for an advance payment (if eligible)
• a StepUP Loan (low interest loan)

See the Resources page for links.

A payment nominee is responsible for determining allocations from the Income Management account of the person for whom they are a payment nominee. A BasicsCard can be issued to the payment nominee, or the payment nominee can decide to have the card issued to the customer. Should the payment nominee consent to the card being assigned to the customer, the customer needs to sign the BasicsCard receipt.

A correspondence nominee cannot be issued with a BasicsCard. A correspondence nominee can, where there is no payment nominee, generally act in place of, or on behalf of, the customer in the application of Income Management.