Letters for Child Support customers 277-01060000

The phone is the primary tool for communicating with Child Support customers. Child Support will try to speak to customers first unless the customer prefers Child Support to respond to their enquiry another way.

If a customer has a restricted customer service option limiting them to written correspondence only, see Personalised Services.

Child Support uses letters as a means of contact only when there is a legislative or administrative requirement to provide a written notice. This includes when:

• making a decision
• confirming a step in a process
• sending a formal notice

Most Child Support letters do not include a signature image. These letters are lawful because Child Support legislation does not require a signature on correspondence. See References.

This document provides information about:

• the different types of letters
• when approval is required
• letter writing principles
• printing letters

OC4 letters have coloured headings and icons to help customers identify action required.

The 4 colours and icons are:

• The informational icon with a blue letter heading is non-critical but timely information
• The warning icon with an orange letter heading is information customers need to plan for, but do not need to act on immediately
• The critical or error icon with a light red letter heading is information customers must act on immediately such as information affecting their payments
• The tick icon with a green letter heading is confirmation information, a task was completed and does not need further action

The footers on all agency OC4 letters are coloured blue and allow interchangeable content for customer and third-party letters.

A Service Officer 3 (SO3) and above is authorised to:

• send an MX1-1 Request for client to contact CSA
• send an MX0-1 Unique letter or MX0-2 Unique letter with assessment with pre-approved text
• create a manually generated system letter with free text. SO6 approval to send the letter is required

A Service Officer 4 (SO4) and above is authorised to:

• send an MX14-1 Advise Outcome of Objection (Non NAP) letter for a general objection. See Child Support objections for more information about how to use this letter

A Service Officer 6 (SO6) and above is authorised to:

• Approve a manually generated system letter with pre-approved text that has been updated
• Approve a manually generated system letter with free text
• Approve an MX14-1 Advise Outcome of Objection (Non NAP) letter for an objection to a COA decision if recommending consideration by an authorised decision maker). See Child Support objections for more information about how to use this letter