jobactive: Payments and Employment Fund Credits
As you may already know, jobactive providers claim fees from the Government for providing employment services to Jobseekers. But what are they and what are they for?
jobactive providers (I’m excluding Disability Employment Services from this for now, and will address it in a whole other section as they have a whole different range of fees to claim) can claim fees from the Government for the following:
Employment Outcomes – at 4, 12 & 26 weeks of a jobseeker’s suitable employment
Educational Outcomes – at completion of 6 months of study (for completion of Year 12 or Certificate III or higher qualification) there are many varying factors for a provider to be able to claim this payment.
Administration Fees
Work for the Dole Fees – different for individual and group based activities
General Employment Fund Account
Long Term Unemployed (LTU) Wage Subsidy Credits
Most of these payments are available for each jobseeker (excluding LTU Wage Subsidy Credits – as some jobseekers may not be considered LTU (12-24 months of unemployment) or V(ery)LTU (24 + months of unemployment) – it is possible for a jobactive to claim everyone of those payments for one jobseeker.
Now, how much are these payments and when do they occur. I’ll do my best to explain in the least confusing way possible (I hear you laughing already!) and I will only take on one payment per post so as not to over inform everyone and to maintain my own sanity 😊.
Employment Outcomes
As stated, a provider can claim these outcomes at 4 weeks, 12 weeks and 26 weeks of a Jobseeker's employment. They do vary depending on what Stream a jobseeker and if they are meeting their employment requirements either fully or partially.
Anybody who has started employment, whether they have secured it themselves or the provider has assisted, will have been hassled beyond what one would normally consider harassment for payslips, for permission to contact your employer (they MUST have this, and you have probably already given permission without even knowing), some of them probably even offer you fuel cards to supply those payslips – but why should you when your provider did nothing to help you secure employment? So don’t, ok – revoke all previous permission given to contact your employer, in writing. It’s as simple as sending an email to the Site Manager of your provider - if you have any questions about this, then send me a private message, as I don’t want to get completely off topic. You are ONLY required to report your earnings (before tax) to Centrelink, your provider should be able to run a report in their employment systems called a Jobseeker Rate Reduction Ration (JRRR) or Jobseeker Employment Hours Reduction (JEHR) – The JRRR report will tell your provider how much your payment from Centrelink has been reduced due to the earnings you report as a percentage.
If I were a jobseeker who had secured employment and received no assistance in securing that employment, I would not be giving them any information about the job. I would also email the manager of my job provider and advise them that, as of this date, I hereby revoke ANY previous permission given to contact potential or current employers by ANY method or for ANY reason. However, in doing this, it is of the utmost importance that you report your earnings correctly, speak to Centrelink about how you should be reporting your earnings correctly.
You do not have to provide any of those details to your provider, if that put this in your Job Plan, then you can request that it be removed.
Table 1A – Outcomes Payments outline these payments that the provider can claim for the different streams and the different periods of unemployment in non-regional (or non-remote) areas.
Table 1B – Outcome Payments outline the payments that the providers can claim for the different streams and different periods of unemployment in regional (or remote) locations.
These fees are being claimed by your provider as outlined in the tables above, for each individual jobseeker on their caseload who has commenced employment. Whether you secured that employment with absolutely not assistance from them, pretty much simply because you attended those appointments prior to securing employment. Do you think that they have justifiably earned these fees? Just for producing a resume, that is most likely generated from the employment systems when they enter that little tiny bit of employment and education history that you provided them with? Ever noticed how a majority of them look the same?
A ‘Full Outcome’ is claimed against when the jobseeker is working their required amount of hours (full-time or part-time activity tested and partial work capacity is achieved) OR when your rate of payment is reduced by 100%.
A ‘Partial Outcome’ is claimed against when the jobseeker is working part of their required amount of hours (full-time or part-time activity tested and partial work capacity is partially achieved). This is not to say that if you have a requirement of 30 hours per week, and you work 8 hours per week, they will be able to claim, I believe that it must be around at least 50% of of the required hours, if anybody wants this clarified, then let me know and I will get back to you.
An ‘Educational Outcome’ is only paid once per training activity and has it’s own set of rules. I will address this in a later post.
Well I think this covers Outcome Payments. I hope that I have made it clear enough for you to understand, my mind tends to run off into the land of Employment Services and I end up more confusing than helpful.
I think it is really important to point out here, that these fee's are not part of the Employment Account (fund). Providers do not receive these Outcome Payments to forward on to jobseeker to assist in employment, but rather, the fees they have negotiated and now agreed to charge the Department of Employment for their services. Providing services have costs such as' premises, IT and Communication equipment, Staff, transport, resources etc.
Again, any questions or clarity required, please do not hesitate to contact JSIN.
All information is current at time of posting, and is my own interpretation of the Social Security Act and the jobactive Deed 2015-2020 based on my experience and knowledge within the Employment Services Industry.
