Suspending, cancelling and restoring Farm Household Allowance (FHA) 002-02080010

When a customer's payments are suspended, they must be told the reason and given their rights of review and appeal, to avoid placing them in financial hardship.

Suspension may occur for the following reasons:

• qualification failures, failure to:
• agree to Financial Improvement Agreement (FIA)
• comply with activities in FIA
• compliance failures, failure to:
• enter into Farm Financial Assessment (FFA)
• report employment income
• notify change of circumstances
• reply to correspondence
• provide an annual financial update
• customer travelling overseas without an approved reason
• compensation settlement under investigation
• a direct credit payment has been returned

Suspension does not necessarily indicate a loss of entitlement. Full arrears may be issued if the payment is subsequently restored.

Before considering a manual suspension, the decision maker must be satisfied that:

• a notice was issued to the customer
• the notice contained details of:
• the information/action required by the customer
• the timeframe for response
• the consequences of non-compliance
• a reference to the relevant legislation under which the notice is given, and
• the customer has not complied with the request.
  Note: if a compliance failure was recorded, payments will restart from the date the customer complies. A conduct failure results in an 8-week non-payment period rather than a suspension

For more details on qualification and conduct failures, see Mutual obligations, failures and exemptions from the activity test for Farm Household (FHA) customers.

When a customer's payments are cancelled, they must be told the reason and given their rights of review and appeal rights, to avoid placing them in financial hardship.

Entitlement to FHA may be cancelled for various reasons. Most cancellations occur because of:

• new information supplied by the customer under their obligations to notify of changes, and
• a failure to comply with notification obligations

FHA may also be manually cancelled if the customer asks for payments to stop if they have started study or work.

FHA will be cancelled if payment stays suspended after 13 weeks or if the customer:

• fails to report income within 15 days of their reporting due date
• asks for their payments to be cancelled
• ceases to qualify for FHA
• is granted an alternative income support payment
• is imprisoned/on remand
• fails to reply to correspondence
• employment income precludes for 12 consecutive fortnights
• partner's employment income precludes for 12 consecutive fortnights

If a customer asks for FHA to be cancelled, they may have to submit a new FHA claim to receive payments in the future.

Customers are only eligible for 1,460 days on payment of FHA in each specific 10 year period. At the end of this time:

• customers may need to report one last time to release the final amount of FHA up to the 1,460 day mark
• this reporting date may be after the Predicted End Date of FHA

When the customer completes their final report this will release their final payment and trigger the cancellation of FHA.

For more details, see Fourth year exit pathway for Farm Household Allowance (FHA) customers.

When coding a decision to suspend/cancel FHA, a reason must be recorded. The Resources page contains a list of reason codes used for FHA. Processing staff must select the code that most accurately reflects the reason for the cancellation.

Use of the reason code Other (OTH) should only occur if the reason for the suspension/cancellation does not correspond to any of the existing codes. The reason must be clearly recorded on a DOC as a request may be made to explain the decision at a later stage. A manual suspend/cancel letter must be sent to the customer (and nominee if applicable) when the code OTH is used.

Before a payment is suspended or cancelled, the decision maker must be satisfied that there is sufficient evidence that the customer is either:

• not qualified for the payment, or
• the payment is not payable

If there is none, information must be requested from the customer via a notice under the appropriate section of the Social Security (Administration) Act; section 63, 67, 68, or part 5, division 1.

Note: outstanding reports for suspended customers must be completed to prevent cancellation for failing to report (FRP) overriding the suspension reason.

FHA can only be restored after a review of a decision to suspend FHA. If there has been a change of circumstances, the relevant information must be updated on the customer's record before restoring or re-granting payment to avoid generating incorrect arrears.

If payment is suspended because the customer did not provide a Farm Financial Assessment (FFA) or has committed a qualification failure, FHA can only be restored after actioning the failure.

To restore payment after:

• an FFA failure has been applied, the failure must be resolved first. See Farm Financial Assessments (FFA)
• a qualification failure has been applied; the failure must be resolved first. See Mutual obligations, failures and exemptions from the activity test for Farm Household Allowance (FHA) customers

Once the failure has been resolved, restore the payment.

If FHA has been cancelled and circumstances have changed, they may need to submit a new claim to receive future FHA payments.

If the customer is suspended and or cancelled for multiple reasons, the restoration may only occur when a customer's qualification for payment has been fully re-established. This can be checked using the Benefit Status (XBS) screen.

When FHA is suspended or cancelled a letter will be sent to the customer advising of:

• the suspension/cancellation and the reason
• any information or documentation required to allow FHA to be restored, and
• their review and appeal rights

If a customer contacts about a suspension or cancellation, explain the reason for the suspension or cancellation. Give details about what they need to do to have their payment restored after suspension. If the customer's payment was cancelled, tell them how to apply for a formal review of the decision or re-claim FHA.

If suspected, or if the customer discloses, they are experiencing vulnerability, offer referral to available resources, external services providers or agency specialist staff if needed.