Changes to FAO letters

[briggsy's girl]

For everyone that receives FAO payments - the letters that explain your payments are changing as of now. I haven't received my own letter yet, so can't say exactly how it will appear, but basically it's going to show the MAXIMUM ftb/rent assistance for your family (based on number of children and their ages) and then it will have a 'rate reduction' of x amount. X amount COULD be due to income, child support you receive etc.

the amount you receive will still be the same - you're not losing anything - it's just that someone somewhere thought it would make more sense to do it this way. unfortunately, the response to the changes so far is not at all positive, and i've had a couple of friends message me to ask what has happened, so thought i'd put it out there for all of you!

keep in mind that any income over about 5k for the lower income earner in a family, and 47.5k** combined means that your income reduces your ftb entitlement, which is where X comes in to play

(** i've used 47.5k as that's the current level - it will be different from 1 July)

[RainbowRiver]

Ah, now it makes sense! I thought I was losing money but had no idea why!

[briggsy's girl]

the letters previously included the maximum amount, but it was less confusing (well i believe so!)

[Freya]

The new way is super confusing. But thanks for clarifying what it means!

[Jennifer13]

Mine is online apparently. Now to remember my login details...

[BOC]

Ohhhh thank you BG! I was so confused & wondering why I was getting less money when I've had to give up work!

[ladybirdflies]

I scratched my head when my letter came today for a few minutes!!

[emmjayt]

Thank you. I was very confused when I read mine

[Astrid]

Ah that explains it. Thought it was odd. Our payment has gone down overall, which I did not expect, as I thought we were on the minimum anyway (no part b, but part a).

[briggsy's girl]

There is no "minimum" for ftba. There is a "base" rate, where it plateaus for a while, but once you go past the plateau come it starts reducing again to it hits nil rate

[Astrid]

That is what I meant the base (going from memory). Thought it was all or nothing for the base, that is just stopped at a point rather than reducing. Have read those pages numerous times, but never picked that bit up.

[briggsy's girl]

I find the tables on the website contain a lot of info but not stuff that is needed and easy to interpret.

[briggsy's girl]

And the fact it's often referred to as "base rate" doesn't help!

[Astrid]

Does not make much sense. Thought it would be have been better to have just had it worked out in a way that is reduced all the way to zero. The plateau is confusing (well mostly due to it not being explained well) a graph would be a great way to describe it.

[briggsy's girl]

Yeah a graph might help.

[AnyDream]

Well I haven't seen a letter yet but I just wanted to comment how misleading the FTB (a) income tables are on the website ... For example, it looks like it cuts out altogether for 2 chn at a combined income of 112k odd, but if you ring them you are told, no, that figure "is including the supplement" (WTF? What does that even mean? It sounds like it means Centrelink scales up your taxable income if you qualify for fortnightly FTB a) .... And the REAL figure for fortnightly payments is actually under 107K odd. Wouldnt it makes more sense to have a sentence that says "there are two tiers of FTB a eligibility, the first is for fortnightly payments ... Etc blah blah blah. ?!

And they wonder why they get call centre phone meltdowns...! I rang last night & was advised of a 90 min wait - in the private call centre business, anything over 5 mins & you start paying fines. If they put a little more effort into communicating clear messages they might not get so many calls from confused people. BG do you know whether they have focus groups where they test these webpages/letters on end users? If so, how do I sign up? And if not, I suggest you write an innovation proposal because road testing stuff like this better would save many tens of thousands of dollars.

[Astrid]

Well I haven't seen a letter yet but I just wanted to comment how misleading the FTB (a) income tables are on the website ... For example, it looks like it cuts out altogether for 2 chn at a combined income of 112k odd, but if you ring them you are told, no, that figure "is including the supplement" (WTF? What does that even mean? It sounds like it means Centrelink scales up your taxable income if you qualify for fortnightly FTB a) .... And the REAL figure for fortnightly payments is actually under 107K odd. Wouldnt it makes more sense to have a sentence that says "there are two tiers of FTB a eligibility, the first is for fortnightly payments ... Etc blah blah blah. ?!

.

That is what I assumed. Now I know I have to monitor our income more closely in the next few years, as I was working on the $112k

[briggsy's girl]

There is a contact us link online. Put your feedback in through there. It is more likely to be addressed coming from someone in the general public than from me!