Financially vulnerable people should be supported with direction to financial counselling services, expanded existing concessions for utilities payments and straight-forward and consistent hardship application processes across government departments and agencies. 

Rationale 

Concessions are extremely important and can make a huge difference in people’s lives when they are struggling financially or trying to get by on very little. It is important everyone who needs concessions can access them.

Recommendation 

SAFCA asks the State Government to implement the recommendations made by SACOSS in A Farer Concessions System.

Rationale 

Concession eligibility and assessment process vary between each program and provider. This can make them complex to navigate and can have unintended consequences for people who are financially vulnerable. 

Recommendation 

SAFCA asks that the state government enable utility retailers to administer concessions on behalf of the state government to ensure concessions are immediately applied to all eligible customers. 
 

Rationale 

Hardship application processes should be simple and accessible to enable financially vulnerable people the best possible opportunity  to repay debt.

Recommendation

SAFCA asks that the state government initiate a broad review of its hardship application processes to ensure consistency, proper targeting, and ease of access, with the aim of  achieving a simple and streamlined hardship application and assessment process across all state government department.

“Each government department has its own hardship application process with varying eligibility criteria and application forms. The processes are not clearly stated or easily understood. This makes hardship applications a difficult process that can be time consuming and overly complicated. Consistency across departments would create a more efficient process that would have better outcomes for all involved.”    

Juliet
SAFCA Member