Recently I tried to enrol my toddler to the approved childcare center was adviced
by my childcare provider that the Family assistance Office did not assess my CCB (Childcare benefit) status;
As a result, I have to pay for the full-pay;
The situation as below:
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Currently I am on the Family Tax Benefit (Both A & B) & was adviced by Family Assistance staff that I am also eligible for at least 24 hours Childcare benefit weekly;
At the beginning of this year, I approached the Childcare center &
mentioned to the staff that I would like to reduced-fee CCB, he/she adviced me to contact the Centalink first to obtain the Customer Reference number(CRN), in which I did & sequentially submitted these number to childcare center.
Recently I have found out from Childcare Center that my son's CRN/DOB was invalid; Their reason is that Family assistance Office did not assess my CCB (Childcare benefit) status;
However, from last conversation with the FAO (Family assistance Office), they were pretty certain that my son was registered with CCB;
Hence, I am not sure what I should do, I am stick in between Family assistance Office who said that my CCB is in place & childcare who said otherwise;
Not sure if it is the same now but when I first entered my DS into childcare I had to fill out the FAO Child Care Benefit form and submit it. On it you had to put the Child Care that you are wanting or sending your child to including there centre number. I think it took 3 weeks as DS started in July which was just as the new financial yr started I recieved a letter giving me the % of CCB I was entitled too. I then asked DS' carer what the % amounted to in money and they were able to tell me my weekly cost. With the new reporting system for fees to FAO my day-care can let me know any changes within a week if I update our estimates.
Sorry if you have already done all this and I haven't been of much help.
You should though have got a letter with your % entitlement which you can take to your day-care to prove your entitlement. If you haven't got this I would be asking FAO for the letter and/or questioning whether they have fully assessed your entitlement hence the reason the day-care don't have it in their system.
GL, it's a pain to get your head around each time.
You should have received a letter from centrelink stating that you are elligable for CCB, what hours and what rate if you have been assessed. Take that to the centre. If you don't have this letter, then someone at centrelink hasn't processed your request. I am a director, and this happens alot, centrelink tell families over the phone that all is set up, yet when the centre tries to enrol the child, the enrolement won't process because it hasn't been.
A little background to better help you understand - when a child enrols at a centre, we must have both the correct family and child CRN, and correct parent (depends if mum or dad registered originally which parent) and child date of birth. The parent will also need to have been assessed for CCB elligability and that to have been processed. Otherwise, when we hit the enrol child button, all we get is details incorrect, invalid or not found.
From a centres point of view, we have to charge you full price until this works, as we have no way of knowing whether you will ever be elligable for CCB and can't risk being left with a big bill - as has happened to many a centre in the past.
Call centrelink again, tell them your issue, ask to speak to a supervisor and get a receipt number for your call. The centre can then ring if they are still having issues and provide that receipt number and get it sorted out. I had to do this with one parent who was having the exact issue you are, being told one thing when it was never being done.
no point asking to speak to a supervisor - from a technical perspective, the staff on the phones know more than the supervisors! supervisors are there to manage the teams, they do not deal with the systems on a day to day basis, so are not up to date with how things work
when you call FAO (136150) tell them you want to confirm that you are CCB current for that child. ask them to confirm child CRN and DOB on the system (to ensure no mistakes), to check your current percentage, and to reissue you the letter with your entitlement on it. if you have the CRN of the centre, they should be able to send a letter to the centre as well (although the system was changed recently so this may not be possible). if you provide the letter to the centre and they still have problems, there is a childcare provider hotline that they can contact for assistance.
Briggy's that is what centrelink themselves told me to do when I was having this same issue, tell the parent to ask to speak to a supervisor!
The frustrating part of calling the hotline for help, is they cannot out of confidentiality reasons, tell you anything - understandably - and I know you work, or worked for centrelink and were clearly a great staff member, but there are some who are crap at doing things properly and who do tell parents things have been done when they just have not.
I have received the CCB approval letter from Family Assistance Office (FAO) & submitted to the childcare & they have fixed the system & will apply the reduced CCB from this point onwards;
However, I still have one pending questions/issues, I hope you could share your thoughts:
When I first apply for the CRN from FAO, I called them December last year. After the phone coveration, I have verbal confirmation from FAO staff that my child has enrolled with CCB & given his CRN; At that time, I did not ask them for letter confirmation;
This 5th Janurary, I sent my child to childcare for the 1st time & encountered the CCB Ineligbile issue (As described above from my previous post) from childcare. As a result, I have to pay full-fees from day one. Fortunately, I have called FAO recently & obtained
CCB status with letter confirmation;
However, the letter of approval from FAO, the date of the approval was from 25-Jan-2010, not December last year when I first called Centerlink;
Hence, I am not able to have reduced fees applied from 5th Jan untill 24-Jan-2010.
I have 2 questions:
1. If FAO verbally agreed date (Over the phone) is earlier than the actual CCB confirmation approval date (From Letter) , can I still claim this discrepancy at the end of the financial year or I just have to accept the full fees during this discrepancy period & suffer the loss due to Centerlink's error;
2. In order to have approved CCB eligbility status from FAO, apart from the child who needs CRN, does both parents also need CRN from FAO;
As far as I know, you can still back date 28 days from the date of approval - Briggy's is this right? If that is the case, the centre would have to cancel the 4 weeks prior to this date and resubmit.
FAO backdate to the start date or four weeks, whichever is later. the child care centres are under no obligation to re-bill based on this information. they only have to backdate 14 days
Help needed please - CCB & Childcare Center
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