Issue 43 | 20 June 2005
From 1 July 2005, the CBF support services previously supplied by Nic Bolto of Full Support, will be provided by the FaCS state and territory office network.
Nic would like to thank those services that have managed the reform process so successfully on behalf of their stakeholders. "We were pleased to be able to help where we could. When people called us, we gave the answers." he said. "If we didn't know the answers, we found them out. If we said we would call you back, we did. If we knew of someone who had solved the problem or had a better approach to the solution, we passed on the tip".
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The ACE Industry Development Project is well under way with 20 industry development workshops held so far across Australia.
The Industry Development Project aims to assist open employment agencies to understand the new environment in which disability employment services operate.The project provides tools and resources that can assist services to make the right decisions about their future direction.
Michael Goldsworthy, the principal consultant with Australian Strategic Services, presents the industry development workshops. Michael has extensive experience working in the not-for-profit sector, assisting agencies determine their strategic direction. Each workshop participant also receives a comprehensive workbook. The workshop costs $150 per person.
The feedback from the sessions has been very positive. Many agencies are choosing to send additional staff and board of management members to follow-up sessions.
The industry development project has also funded a one-year full membership to Management Support Online, a website that assists community-based organisations. The website contains tools and resources relating to corporate governance, risk management and service quality.
Existing ACE members have been automatically registered. If you have not yet received a username and password please contact ACE at info@acenational.org.au
For further Information about this project, please contact ACE at the above email address, or go to www.acenational.org.au for regular project updates.
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Services whose Disability Employment Assistance (DEA) funding agreements expire on 30 June 2005 should have received letters from FaCS in the last few weeks extending their agreements for either one or two years from 1 July 2005. Signed acceptances must be returned to us by 24 June 2005 .
To help meet this deadline, you can fax the signed acceptances in the first instance and return the hardcopies immediately afterwards - fax numbers are on the top right of the first page of the variation letter. If we do not receive your correctly signed acceptance by 24 June 2005, your payments from July 2005 may be delayed.
Services that already have a DEA funding agreement in place until 30 June 2007 should receive updated Program Procedures before the end of this month.
Please contact your Contract Manager if you have any questions.
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The amount of your block grant payment depends on the number of BGF clients you have on FOFMS. If you have previously funded clients through your BGF and these clients are not on FOFMS, you are not receiving payments for these clients. You should start these clients as CBF cases as soon as possible.
Intake Completion dates
Once you have put these clients, or any new client on FOFMS, the Intake Completion Date will be automatically populated on authorisation of the intake assessment. The Intake Completion Date cannot be changed on FOFMS.
Disability Maintenance Instrument (DMI) assessments
Once you have started new clients on FOFMS, DMI assessments should only be authorised when the client has been with your service for 13 weeks from the client intake completion date.
However, if you have recently entered clients onto FOFMS that have been with your service for more than 13 weeks, you can send us a request to move the client onto maintenance on authorisation of a DMI within the 13 week period.
To do this you need to provide:
Any service with outstanding DMI assessments/reassessments for other CBF clients will not be given approval to complete DMI assessments early for any clients, until all outstanding DMI assessments/reassessments are finalised. Please send all requests for moving clients early onto maintenance payments to the FOFMS Helpdesk. We will write to you advising of the outcome of your request.
Please note: If you do get approval to move a client early onto maintenance, payments for that client will not be backdated. The first maintenance payment will occur on the next anniversary date of the client's case after approval.
After Release 3 of FOFMS, the system will not allow DMI assessments to be authorised until 13 weeks after the client's Intake Completion Date. It is therefore very important that you update all client and case lists as a priority.
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The opportunity to select cases to transition to CBF from 1 July 2005 has now passed. We have temporarily removed your ability to select cases for transition on FOFMS while we calculate the Cash Flow Adjustment (CFA) payment and the actual transition of cases on FOFMS is being processed. We will restore your access to the 'transition tab' for your cases shortly after 1 July 2005.
FaCS did not enforce the requirement that you transition the number of clients equal to your conversion capacity for the July transition point, however we remind you that any shortfall in numbers from the July 2005 transition point will be added to your conversion target for the 1 January 2006 transition point.
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To ensure that Business Services moving clients from BGF to CBF on 1 July do not have their cash flow interrupted, FaCS will once again be making a cash flow adjustment payment. The CFA payment will smooth the transition from payments made in advance to in arrears as each client group is loaded onto FOFMS.
The CFA payment equals one month's CBF payment (determined by the DMI funding level) for each client selected to transition on 1 July. This is because BGF clients transitioning to CBF were paid their last BGF payment on 1 June, for the month of June and would otherwise not receive their first CBF payment for these clients until early August (for the month of July).
In the last week of June you will receive your CFA payment for clients transitioning on 1 July.
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A number of you have asked us to consider increasing the time out setting limit, which currently applies in FOFMS. As part of the rigorous performance analysis and testing we have been conducting over the past six weeks, the FOFMS project team tested the impact of an increased time out setting. The results show that increasing the time out limit negatively impacts on performance.
In the interests of maintaining and improving systems performance, we have decided to keep the current time out settings.
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Payment reconciliation in FOFMS has been upgraded in response to requests from providers. We have made several enhancements to the Recipient Created Tax Invoice (RCTI). This includes adding the Agreement and Case Id (where applicable), payment type and the remittance description related to the payment.
We have also included the IMPACT Clearing Number in the reference data to your bank statement. To draw all of this information together you will be able to view and query FOFMS using the IMPACT Clearing Number, documented on your bank statement. The IMPACT Clearing Number will be added to the Payment Request Portal view in the overnight upgrade on 22 June.
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The final run of DEA payments for the 2004-05 financial year will be run from FOFMS on the evening of 24 June 2005. You will still be able to access FOFMS after this date, however you will not receive any further payments until after 1 July 2005.
Any CBF cases with Intake Completion Dates of the 24 th and 31 st of the month, will be processed on the evening of 24 June. These payments should reach your bank accounts by 29 June.
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By now you would have received your first Business Service Funding Subsidy payment. The subsidy guarantees that previous block grant funding levels are maintained for services during the transition to CBF. It is paid to services whose total current monthly funding (excluding Work Based Personal Assistance payments and DMI assessment payments) is less than the monthly block grant funding that was paid before transition. The Funding Subsidy makes up the difference between the two levels of funding.
In this context, the subsidy will be paid at a level of 100 per cent until 30 June 2006, and then at a level of 75 per cent until 30 June 2007 at which time the subsidy will end.
For more information about the Funding Subsidy please refer to Paragraph 51 of the Program Procedures in the current Business Services Funding Agreement or contact your state and territory Office Agreement Manager.
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The first CBF payment for clients moving to CBF will be released from FOFMS on 31 July. These payments should reach your bank accounts during the first week in August.
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During the period 12 May - 3 June 2005, the FOFMS Project Team made several changes resulting in significant improvement to the FOFMS performance for Service Providers with both Dial-Up and Broadband Internet connection. During the change process, FaCS also conducted regular survey testing with a significant number of Service Providers.
As the final step in this process, we will send Service Providers a list of recommended Internet Explorer and Netscape settings designed to improve your FOFMS connection. Depending on your existing settings, it is possible that changes to your organisation's settings could improve performance times.
The FOFMS Project team will keep working with Service Providers who have performance issues. We thank you for your patience while we address these issues and the time given by staff who have helped our investigations.
If you have feedback please contact the FOFMS Helpdesk on 1800 020 283 or fofms@facsia.gov.au .
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