Student Start-up Scholarship (SSS) payment and coding 010-07030030

The SSS will be paid automatically to eligible customers. Customers do not need to claim SSS.

Note: from 1 July 2017 no SSS will be paid automatically for any customers, including those who were previously grandfathered.

The system identifies whether a customer meets the grandfathering rules for SSS and will pay eligible students who have been on continuous payments prior to 1 January 2016.

Customers must receive at least $1 of basic benefit during the period in order to qualify for SSS. Receipt of Rent Assistance (RA) and/or Pharmaceutical Allowance (PhA) (or other supplements) alone do not qualify the customer for the SSS. This means if reported income reduces basic benefit to nil, then the scholarship will not pay. Services Australia issues letters informing customers of the expected pay date for scholarships.

• SSS payments are not included when calculating a customer's advance payment entitlements
• SSS payments are not taxable
• SSS is usually paid as a lump sum, however, where a customer's YA, Austudy or ABSTUDY payment is income managed, the SSS will be income managed at 100%

Note: if a customer has ceased receiving a Commonwealth Education Costs Scholarship (CECS), the CECS must be end dated on the Higher Education Scholarship (!HES) screen or the SSS will not be granted for the new course or education provider. The end date that must be used is either 30 Jun or 31 Dec in the study period in which CECS ceased, regardless of the actual date that the customer ceased receiving it.

• If the customer receives ABSTUDY Living Allowance, the SSS will be paid with their first ABSTUDY payment after the SSS qualification date, or as an immediate arrears following assessment
• If the customer receives YA or Austudy, their SSS will be paid on the customer's first Entitlement Period End Date (EPED) after their SSS qualification date, or after the reassessment that identifies an SSS qualification date in the past

For continuing students (such as customers whose student start date is before the current period) who qualify in a particular period, the automatic payment will be issued in late February or early March for the first period and in late July for the second period (as long as they qualify in both periods).

SSS payments to continuing students are triggered by a batch reassessment on the default study start date for the period.

The SSS is a lump sum for each period, and customers must qualify in each period in order to get 2 SSS payments in a given calendar year.

See 'Scholarships (Relocation and Student Start Up' in Rates and thresholds for the current amount.

Note: the Higher Education Scholarship Details (HESD) screen will show historical data so dates need to be checked and information on this screen before discussion with the customer. For coding guidance, see Assessing scholarship income.

Has the system issued the correct amount?

• Yes, procedure ends here
• No, go to Step 5

Note: no SSS will be paid for a date of effect on or after 1 July 2017. This step should only be followed if a customer was deemed eligible for SSS prior to 1 July 2017 and was not automatically paid by the system.

To issue an SSS payment, the details on the Grandfathering Assessment (!GAS) screen may need to be updated.

Investigate the record to determine if the customer should be grandfathered for the SSS. See Student Start-up Scholarship (SSS) eligibility for further information.

To restore grandfathered status for an eligible customer, the following fields will need to be manually coded on the !GAS screen:

• Date of effect: this will be one of two dates:
• 1 January 2016, or
• if restoring grandfathered status after the system has incorrectly cancelled grandfathering, the date of effect will be the date the system cancelled grandfathering
• Grandfather type: Student Start-up Scholarship
• Benefit type: select the customer's income support payment (Youth Allowance, Austudy or ABSTUDY)
• Status indicator: Yes to grandfather
• Reason code: select the most appropriate reason code from the drop down list. An appropriate reason code, compatible with the status indicator must be selected.
  The only manual options that can be selected to grandfather a customer are 'appeal' and 'system error'
• Add Source and Date Of Receipt

Complete the activity. If the customer is recorded as being grandfathered for SSS, the payment will appear on the Assessment Results (AR) screen.

If the system is either attempting to or has incorrectly issued the SSS, go to the !GAS screen and record the student as being ineligible for grandfathering.

The following fields will need to be manually coded on the !GAS screen:

• Date of effect: this will be one of two dates:
• 1 January 2016, or
• the date the removal of grandfathering is to be effective from
• Grandfather type: Student Start-up Scholarship
• Benefit type: select the customer's income support payment (Youth Allowance, Austudy or ABSTUDY)
• Status indicator: No to remove grandfathering
• Reason code: An appropriate reason code, compatible with the status indicator must be selected. 'No longer grandfathered' is the only manual option that can be selected to remove grandfathering
• Add Source and Date of Receipt

Complete the activity and the SSS will not appear on the AR screen.

The Payment Summary (PS) screen may show a delivery date for the SSS in the past. When this payment is selected and there is no payment ID number on the Payment Delivery (PD) screen, the SSS was not delivered.

The delivery date is set presuming that the customer will report on their correct date.

If the customer reports late, the SSS is not delivered.

Once the customer reports and is qualified for at least $1 of basic benefit, then the SSS will deliver on the next working date with their regular payment.

Has the student received a Commonwealth Education Costs Scholarship (CECS) in the 6 months immediately after the date they qualify for SSS?

This also applies if the customer was qualified for a CECS during that period but did not receive it only because their CECS was suspended (for example, because the customer failed to meet CECS performance requirements in a preceding period).

There are 2 categories of CECS:

• Indigenous CECS - funding for up to eight scholarship periods to assist students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate diploma (or equivalent post graduate study)
• Indigenous Enabling CECS - funding for up to two scholarship periods to assist students to undertake an eligible enabling course. Written evidence provided by customers may not identify that the scholarship is a Commonwealth Education Costs Scholarship (CECS) and may refer only to the category (for example, National Priority Scholarship)

Note: CECS takes precedence over SSS. This means that if a person receives both a CECS and a SSS within a 6 month period, the SSS will be a debt.

• Yes, go to Step 9
• No, procedure ends here

Some overpayments will be raised automatically by the system based on coding on the Customer Study Details (EDC) screen in Process Direct or on the Education Course Details (EDC) screen in Customer First. The student end date is compared with the student start date to determine whether the student is studying in an approved scholarship course on day 35. See Scholarship study requirements for more information.

All students with a student start date in the same period (for example, same semester, same year etc) will have their overpayment calculated automatically by the system.

Continuing students or students with a student start date in an earlier period will need to be checked to ensure that the overpayment is raised correctly. These students must have re-commenced studies in the new year/semester and be studying in an approved scholarship course for 35 days to remain eligible for the SSS payment. If the student is not studying on day 35 after they have commenced or re-commenced an approved scholarship course, the system does not automatically raise the SSS as an overpayment. The SSS payment will need to be manually raised as an overpayment.

The system will automatically use a default study start date in order to ensure scholarship payments are generated during each scholarship period. As a result, when updating a study end date, the system may determine a particular customer is eligible or not eligible for a scholarship payment based on this default study start date. As this date is not an accurate reflection of the actual start date for the customer in any ongoing semester/study period, a debt should be raised, and the Higher Education Scholarship (!HES) screen updated accordingly. Conversely, when it is identified that a debt should not have been raised, the record should be documented clearly for the teams managing these debts to be aware of the circumstances and investigate accordingly.

If a student's start date is in a previous period, the system will try to determine whether the student qualifies in the current period by calculating 35 days from the default study start date. However, the default study start date may not be the same as the student's actual provider start date in the current period. Therefore, when coding a course end date for a continuing student, determine the actual provider start date for the current period, and ensure the customer is studying in an approved scholarship course on day 35 since that date. If there are less than 35 days between the actual start date and the student's end date in the relevant period, an overpayment of SSS must be manually raised for the period.

Even if the system automatically creates a debt shell when a course end date is coded for a continuing student, the actual provider start date must still be confirmed, in order to determine whether the customer is currently studying on day 35 in this period.

For example, some provder start dates may occur prior to the default study start date. In these cases a student may actually have undertaken 35 days of study, despite the system automatically creating a debt shell when an end date is coded within 35 days of the default study start date.

Note: there is a known system issue where the SSS payment is paid when a student is granted payment retrospectively and is yet to report their income. If the customer reports income which results in nil (basic) payable then an undetermined debt activity will be created. This is because the customer is not qualified for the SSS until all of the eligibility conditions are met. The activity should be held to check if the customer meets qualification in a future period.

A debt may be raised for any SSS payment that was:

• paid for a time when a customer was not qualified for YA, Austudy or ABSTUDY Living Allowance throughout a period, or
• paid for a time when YA, Austudy or ABSTUDY Living Allowance was not payable to the customer throughout a period (whether or not they were qualified for YA, Austudy or ABSTUDY Living Allowance at that time)

A SSS payment may also be a debt if the customer receives a SSS payment because they propose to undertake an approved scholarship course in a period, but:

• they do not start to undertake that course, or
• they are not undertaking that course at the end of 35 days after the course commences, or
• they are not undertaking that course at the end of 35 days after their qualification date for the SSS

Note: these 3 provisions do not apply if the customer was prevented from meeting any of these requirements due to exceptional circumstances beyond the person's control.