News

QA Standards Audits of Targeted Support Outlets and Organisations

Business Services providing Targeted Support in either whole outlets or to individuals are reminded that they are required to meet the specific Targeted Support Standards as a pre-requisite for ongoing funding.

Organisations offering Targeted Support have 12 months from the start date of their Targeted Support funding agreement to meet the Targeted Support Disability Services Standards and associated Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s).

Organisations that re-profiled part of their operations to Targeted Support in 2004-2005 have until 30 June 2006 to meet the Targeted Support Disability Services Standards and KPI’s.

From now on, new organisations offering targeted support will have 12 months from the start date of their Targeted Support funding agreement to meet the Targeted Support Disability Services Standards and KPI’s. For individual consumers on Targeted Support programs in Disability Employment Assistance Services, organisations need to ensure that the program meets the Targeted Support Disability Services Standards and KPI’s within 12 months of the date of the consumer’s Individual Program Plan or equivalent plan.

Certification Bodies will be asked to include Targeted Support outlets as part of their sample for the organisation’s next Quality Assurance Audit.

For more information on Quality Assurance and Targeted Support, please call Mark Heywood on (07) 3005 6094.

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Updates to your Programme Procedures

You will soon get an April 2006 update to your Disability Employment Assistance (DEA) Programme Procedures. The major change sets out the new arrangements for the Rural & Remote Service Supplement (see disAbility e-news issue 55, 5 December 2005, and Special Issue 11, 19 December 2005). We've also updated the Programme Procedures to include other issues from previous disAbility e-news editions, including tips on how to understand your DEA payments in FOFMS and removing the requirement to notify Centrelink of suspensions. As it wouldn't be an update without some technical amendments, you'll also find some updates to definitions, acronyms and some corrections.

If you have any questions about the updates to your DEA Programme Procedures, please contact your local Contract Manager.

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'CRN is not unique' error message in FOFMS

Sometimes when you are entering in new client details on FOFMS you may get the error message ‘CRN is not unique’. This happens when the client details you are trying to enter are already on FOFMS, that is, the client already has a record on the system. If you do get this error message, please contact the CBF Helpdesk by email at Helpdesk.CBF@facsia.gov.au, or by phone on 1800 034 887.

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BizAbility

Don’t miss your opportunity to advertise any seasonal or specially priced products or services for Easter. If you would like your specials featured in the ‘Specials’ section, forward the product or service details, your trading name, email address and contact details to Bizability@facsia.gov.au.

Access to the BizAbility Administration Area

A general reminder to all services listed on BizAbility to log on to the administration area of the web site to check your details. To do this you need to have completed a User Access Form. If you have not already done so please contact the mailbox at Bizability@facsia.gov.au

Feedback

BizAbility is for business services to promote and market their products and/or services. We welcome your feedback about the website. Please forward to Bizability@facsia.gov.au.

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What should I do in preparation for transition to CBF on 1 July 2006?

FOFMS has now been updated with the 1 July 2006 Conversion Capacity figures. By 1 July 2006, all services must have transitioned all BGF cases to CBF.

You must complete two important tasks by Friday 26 May 2006 to ensure that your service has transitioned all remaining BGF cases by 1 July 2006.

By 26 May 2006 you must:

1. Complete DMIs for clients who are Block Grant workers and that you are planning to transition at 1 July 2006. Please note that you cannot transition a client who does not have an authorised DMI.
2. Mark the cases for transition. Once DMIs are completed you must select each of the required number of cases for transition. You do this by using the 'Select for Transition' option in FOFMS. Please note that you cannot transition more cases than specified in your conversion capacity.

How do I determine how many cases I have to transition?

• Your conversion capacity, which is recorded in FOFMS, is the number of clients you need to transition and reflects the number of BGF cases your service had on FOFMS on 1 January 2006. Please note that if, on 26 May 2006, your service has less BGF workers than your conversion capacity, to satisfy your funding obligations just transition all your BGF workers.
• You must transition all BGF workers. You cannot transition BGF Job Seekers or cases recorded in FOFMS under a separate Targeted Support Agreement Schedule.
• Cases that are trialling Targeted Support but are still recorded under an Employment Assistance Agreement Schedule in FOFMS still need to transition to CBF. The transition to CBF will not affect the trial of the case under Targeted Support. The case will continue to trial Targeted Support after the transition to CBF.

What happens to cases I do not transition?

• Any BGF case under an active Employment Assistance Agreement Schedule that is not selected for transition by 26 May 2006 will be automatically exited from the service in June 2006. You will be able to restart the client from July 2006 as a New Job Seeker under CBF.

Cases listed under a Targeted Support Agreement Schedule should not be selected for transition. All cases under a Targeted Support Agreement Schedule will continue to receive Targeted Support.

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When can you complete a DMI for a CBF job seeker?

A Disability Maintenance Instrument (DMI) is an assessment of the relative level of assistance required for a job seeker to maintain employment with your service. It determines your level of 'maintenance' funding for that client.

Under the Programme Procedures a DMI can only be completed once a job seeker obtains an Employment Outcome.

Under Clause 17 of the Standard Terms and Conditions of Funding, an Employment Outcome is defined as 'employment for at least 8 hours per week for at least 13 weeks'. This means you cannot complete and authorise a DMI until at least 13 weeks after the job seeker commenced receiving FaCSIA funded assistance from your service. The job seeker is deemed to have been receiving assistance from the 'Intake Completion Date' recorded in FOFMS.

For example, if you have a job seeker with an Intake Completion Date of 2 January 2006 then the earliest it would be possible for them to achieve an Employment Outcome would be 3 April 2006. This could only occur if the job seeker started work in their first week with your service and maintained that employment for a minimum of 8 hours per week for 13 straight weeks.

Please note: a job seeker has 12 months from their Intake Completion Date to achieve an Employment Outcome. If they don't achieve an Employment Outcome within 12 months then the Job Seeker must be exited. This is done by changing their Status to 'Exited' on FOFMS.

If you have any questions please contact your local State or Territory Contract Manager.

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FOFMS Release 5

On 4 April 2006, new functionality will be released into FOFMS which will help you use FOFMS to reconcile payments made to you by FACSIA. The release will implement three new reports which will allow service providers to view:

• Payments made against an Agreement. This report will be useful for larger organisations that have multiple agreement schedules, as it will be broken down by agreement schedule.
• Payment made against an Agreement Schedule. This report will show you all the payments that have been made in respect of a specific agreement schedule.
• Payments made against a Case. This report will show you all the payments that have been made in respect of a specific case or multiple cases.

For all reports, you can select a specific period that you're interested in, ie one month or quarterly. The Agreement Schedule and Case report will also include the first name and surname of individual clients for whom payments have been made. All reports will have subtotals and totals, will be printable and can also be exported to Excel for further manipulation.

A further development that will also help you reconcile your payments is a new screen called 'Consolidated Payment Request Line Items'. This view will be available under the existing Payment Request view. From this new screen view, you will be able to query FOFMS for payment details using the IMPACT Clearing Number (the reference number which is provided on your bank statement with each deposit from FaCSIA) as well as the IMPACT Invoice Number (the document number contained on your Recipient Created Tax Invoice).

How do I use the new reports?

An information pack to help you in using the new functions was emailed directly to FOFMS users on 15 March and will be available on the FOFMS Literature site from 20 March. A hard copy has been posted to the mailing address recorded for your organisation in FOFMS. If you do not receive your information pack by 21 March, please contact the FOFMS helpdesk on 1800 020 283.

A new user guide, consolidating all the information and user guide updates which you have received since FOFMS was introduced, will be available soon.

It is important for organisations that receive mail on behalf of their outlets to ensure the information provided on FOFMS is passed on to each of their outlets.

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Feedback

We want your feedback

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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Contributions

Your contributions to disAbility e-news are welcome. Do you want to let others know about your successes? Or how you engage with local businesses to create employment opportunities for people with disabilities? Email your story idea to disAbility e-news.

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