Participation and serious failures for students and Australian Apprentices 010-07020000

Customers receiving payments as a student are subject to an assessment regarding their enrolment details, attendance and appropriate study load.

They are also required to attend certain participation related appointments, including participation related Service Profiling or Service Update appointments.

Youth Allowance students who have not met their participation requirements, and continue to be a student may be asked to sign a Student Activity Agreement. If they fail to comply with the terms of the Student Activity Agreement, it may be determined that a participation failure has been committed and a penalty may apply.

Where student's full-time study requirements are not met, for Youth Allowance or Austudy, Services Australia may determine that qualification for payment has been lost for a period of time and cancel the payment and/or raise a debt.

In certain circumstances, a continuing Youth Allowance student may be required to enter into a Student Activity Agreement. This will confirm that they understand and agree to meet their future participation requirements which may include their attendance and study load. The automated Job Plan is not applicable to students and the Student Activity Agreement is a manual process.

When a student’s undertaking full time study requirements are not met for ABSTUDY, the agency may determine that qualification for payment has been lost for a period of time and cancel the payment and/or raise a debt.

In certain circumstances, an ABSTUDY secondary student may be required to enter into an ABSTUDY Activity Agreement.

When a Youth Allowance student does not comply with the requirements of their Activity Agreement, it may be determined that an assessment for a potential participation failure is required.

Austudy customers who have not met their participation requirements, may incur a participation failure and a penalty may apply.

Additionally, if a Youth Allowance or Austudy student fails to attend a Service Profile or Service Update appointment and has committed a participation failure, the initial focus is on ensuring re-engagement with their full-time study requirements. For students, it is assumed that they have reconnected with Services Australia when they attend a Service Profile appointment and the service update is completed.

If a student has had three or more failures in a period of 12 months, an 8 week non-payment period may be considered.

When an ABSTUDY secondary student does not comply with the requirements of their Activity Agreement it will result in an ABSTUDY breach penalty being applied.

Customers receiving payment of Youth Allowance (YA) or Austudy as full-time students are subject to full-time study requirements and may incur a participation failure for not meeting their requirements.

The following groups are not subject to potential participation failures related to full-time study requirements.

• Customers receiving ABSTUDY are not paid under the Social Security Act. However, they are subject to a breach regime for not meeting attendance requirements
• Customers receiving YA or Austudy as a full-time Australian Apprentice are not required to meet full-time study requirements and are excluded from the relevant legislation. However they may, be subject to compliance action if they voluntarily left employment or were dismissed for misconduct whilst they were an apprentice and subsequently claimed YA as a job seeker, JobSeeker Payment (JSP), or Parenting Payment (PP) (with mutual obligation requirements)
• Trainees who are doing a course which does not qualify them for payment as a full-time student or an Australian Apprentice, are regarded as job seekers and will have mutual obligation requirements even if there is no job search component in their requirements. They are required to comply with activities negotiated in a Job Plan

When making an unfavourable decision, speak to the customer:

• explain the decision
• give them a chance to provide more information, and
• advise their review and appeal rights