Issue 45 | 18 July 2005
Nominations for the 2005 Prime Minister’s Employer of the Year Awards are now open.
The Awards recognise employers who provide work opportunities for people with disabilities.
The Awards are open to all employers of people with disabilities and anyone can nominate an employer.
There are eight categories of Awards covering national, large, medium and small business as well as higher education and Federal, State and Local Governments.
We encourage you to participate in the Awards. Nomination is not complicated and can be very rewarding.
Nomination forms are available at www.workplace.gov.au/eya or by calling 13 17 15.
Nominations close on Friday, 2 September 2005.
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Since the introduction of QA on 1 July 2002, FaCS has contributed to organisations’ QA costs. The amount paid for both certification and surveillance costs is based on the number of outlets to be audited by the certification body, which is a sample of the total number of outlets within the organisation. The table below sets out the FaCS certification and surveillance payments.
| Total Number of Outlets within an Organisation (including Head Office) | Certification Payment (Ex GST) |
Surveillance Payment (Ex GST) |
| 1 | $7500 | $3750 |
| 2 | $9000 | $4750 |
| 3 | $10 500 | $5750 |
| 4 | $10 500 | $5750 |
| 5 | $10 500 | $5750 |
Organisations with more than five outlets can get payment amounts from National Disability Operations on (07) 3005 6094. Additional payments will be made for rural and remote outlets that had surveillance and certification audits. For further information on rural and remote payments, please see Section 4 of the QA Handbook Version 2.
The reimbursement is made into the organisation’s bank account once FaCS receives the audit report from the certification body. Organisations are not required to forward invoices to FaCS.
For more information on QA payments call National Disability Operations on (07) 3005 6094.[ top ]
All Australian Government-funded disability services were sent Census packages via express post in the week beginning Monday 27 June 2005. These packages included a CD-ROM to install the software and instruction sheets detailing how to complete the Census.
Information from the Census is important in helping us understand what’s happening across the sector and to plan for the future. Providers can also use Census information to benchmark their organisation across others in their State or Australia-wide. Access Census reports from 1998 to 2003 at the FaCS Website. The 2004 Report will be released in the next few months.
Last year's data has also been sent to all service outlets, which should save service providers time by removing the need to re-enter data unnecessarily.
All Census questionnaires should be returned to FaCS by 29 July 2005 at the address specified in the Census package.
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People who are blind or visually impaired can now better access a wide range of information through the extension of an innovative Australian Government-funded system.
The Minister for Family and Community Services, the Hon Senator Kay Patterson, has provided a grant of $150 000 to the Royal Society for the Blind South Australia, to help it rollout the highly successful BiTS system to public libraries in several states, including NSW, Victoria, and Qld.
BiTS is a digital compression and encryption system used for the storage, handling, and transmission of electronic information. It allows people who are blind, or vision impaired, to download from nominated public libraries a large range of spoken word information onto hand-held players (for example, books, magazines, news articles, and other recorded information).
The BiTS system offers significant advantages over other ways of providing information in this format. It represents a small but significant step in the way that blind or vision impaired people can access information.
Information about the Books in the Sky (BiTS) system rollout can be obtained from The Royal Society for the Blind South Australia on: (08) 8232 4777 or at their internet site: http://www.rsb.org.au/bits.htm
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On 30 June 2005 FaCS successfully moved over 3000 cases to Case Based Funding (CBF). The cases successfully transitioned to CBF as part of this exercise have intake assessment and transition dates of 31 July 2005. Setting these dates to 31 July 2005 will align payments made against these cases with the last day of the month. The first CBF payment for these cases will be made on 31 July 2005, and should be in your bank accounts early in August.
The number of cases selected for transition, which is displayed on the transition view under Agreements in the FaCS Online Funding Management System (FOFMS), has been reset to zero in preparation for the 31 December 2005 transition point. Your access to Select Cases for Transition has been returned so you can begin to prepare for the December transition.
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Release 3 of FOFMS, due 15 August 2005, will enable FaCS to include the payment of Jobseeker Locational Loading to individual CBF payments. The Jobseeker Locational Loading is based on a percentage of the reasonable distance travelled by car one-way from the organisation to the client, or from the client to the organisation . Loading percentages are:
a) Zero for less than one hour;
b) 10 per cent for at least one hour but less than two hours;
c) 20 per cent for at least two hours but less than three hours; and
d) 30 per cent for three hours or more.
In Release 3 we have added one question to the Intake Assessment, Disability Maintenance Instrument (DMI) assessment and DMI reassessment to capture information on the reasonable travel distance between you and the client. The answer to this question will determine the percentage loading you will receive until the next assessment is completed. Once you complete one of the assessments after 15 August 2005, FOFMS will automatically add the applicable loading to all CBF payments for that case.
Please note: only organisations which are classified under the Accessibility Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA) as anything other than ‘Highly Accessible’ are eligible to receive Jobseeker Locational Loading.
FaCS will continue to manually calculate and make the Jobseeker Locational Loading payments for eligible cases until they have completed either an Intake assessment, DMI assessment or DMI reassessment after 15 August 2005.
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On 27 June 2005, ACCI, in association with Australian Business Limited (ABL) met with Business Service representatives in Sydney.
This was the first of several meetings ACCI plan to hold around the country on issues affecting Business Services, and ways to develop business opportunities. A range of topics were covered in a lively discussion, including:
Information from the session was extremely useful, and feedback will be used to develop initiatives within the ACCI project to support Business Services and create business opportunities.
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The Easy English version of the Disability Services Standards has now been translated into 14 community languages for you to use when explaining the Standards to your non-english speaking consumers. The languages available are: Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Turkish, Vietnamese, Italian, Macedonian, Polish, Greek, Hungarian, Chinese, Croatian, Farsi, and Arabic.
You can find the various translated PDF versions of the Easy English Disability Services Standards on the FaCS web site. They are only available to print from the web site and are not available in hard copy.
The Easy English version of the Standards is part of the information kit that was released last year. You can still order hard copies of the english versions of other products in the kit by calling 1800 050 009 and quoting the relevant product number. The products and their numbers are:
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Approximately 1011 clients have now been approved for case management and 572 of them have already commenced. This represents an increase of 318 since February 2005. Of those completing case management, almost two thirds have chosen to stay in work.
By the end of June 2005, 48 business services representing 88 outlets, have expressed interest in case management. CRS Australia has commenced case management in 74 of these outlets, and has completed the first stage in 44.6 per cent (33) of these outlets.
We are fast approaching the deadline for eligible workers to enter case management. Business Services with workers who have shown an interest in case management and targeted support will need to submit a completed Request for Approval of Case Management form to their FaCS state or territory contact officer by COB Wednesday 31 August 2005.
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1. Provision of Jobwise Outreach SelfHelp Groups
DEWR is seeking proposals from organisations to establish Jobwise Outreach Self Help Groups in selected outer suburban and regional areas.
The contract will run from 1 September 2005 to 30 June 2006. Further details are available at the AusTender website, opportunity number ATM 2005/07.
For enquiries and or tender documentation, email DEWR at: JobwiseSHG_Enquiries@dewr.gov.au
Applications close 2 pm (ACT local time), 1 August 2005.
2. Indigenous Youth Mobility Programme – Training and Employment Services
The Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), is seeking suitable organisations to provide a range of training and employment opportunities for 600 young Indigenous Australians from remote areas for the IYMP.
The programme will focus on prevocational experience and New Apprenticeships. It will operate at ten sites nationally. Further details are available at the AusTender Website, opportunity ATM 7263.
For enquiries and or tender documentation, go to the DEST Website.
Applications close 4 pm (ACT local time), 12 August 2005.
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Email disAbility e-news if you'd like more information on a particular issue or program or to let us know what you think of this e-newsletter.
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