Governance
Who decides what
Roles and decision rights for payments, the delegations the gate enforces, the guardrails that stop agents, and internal and external review.
Roles
| Role | Kind | Responsibilities | Decision rights |
|---|---|---|---|
| AUDITOR Internal audit | INTERNAL | Verifies the evidence chain and tests decisions against delegations. | No decisions. Unrestricted read of the chain. |
| CLAIMS_OFFICER Claims officer | INTERNAL | Handles claims the agents route to a person; keys phone and counter claims. | No adverse decisions. |
| DATA_OFFICER Data-matching officer | INTERNAL | Owns the data-matching program, its notices and its protocol. | No entitlement decisions. |
| DELEGATED_OFFICER Delegated officer | INTERNAL | Holds delegation under the complaints policy and information-access law. | Escalates a complaint to formal review; decides information-access requests. |
| FINANCE_OFFICER Finance officer | INTERNAL | Releases payments against approved milestones, in arrears. | Fund release. |
| RECIPIENT Recipient | EXTERNAL | Claims, reports changes, responds to notices, seeks review. | Requests review; responds to an overpayment notice. |
| REVIEW_OFFICER Authorised review officer | INTERNAL | Internal review, independent of the original decision maker. | Affirms, varies or sets aside on internal review. |
| SUPPORT_OFFICER Support officer | INTERNAL | Social work and hardship; speaks to the person before any hardship determination. | Hardship determinations: advances, urgent payments, recovery pauses. |
| TRIBUNAL External review tribunal | EXTERNAL | External merits review. | Sets aside or varies on external review. |
Delegations
| Role | Decision | Note |
|---|---|---|
| DELEGATED_OFFICER | refusal | Refuse a claim, with reasons and the provision. |
| DELEGATED_OFFICER | adverse variation | Reduce or cancel an entitlement. |
| DELEGATED_OFFICER | recovery | Decide recovery of an overpayment: full, instalments, waiver or write-off. |
| SUPPORT_OFFICER | hardship | Grant, part-grant or refuse an advance, urgent payment or recovery pause. |
| FINANCE_OFFICER | payment run | Release a payment run. |
| REVIEW_OFFICER | internal review | Affirm, vary or set aside a decision on internal review. |
Guardrails
GL-PE-01 Adverse decisions are a person's
Refusals, reductions, cancellations and recovery of overpayments are decided by the delegated officer. Agents assess, calculate and draft; they never decide against a person.
GL-PE-02 Automated favourable determinations under recorded authorisation only
An agent issues a favourable determination only for an entitlement type whose instrument authorises automated decisions, under the recorded authorisation, with the reasons and the provision on the notice.
GL-PE-03 Hardship is never determined by an agent
Advances, urgent payments and recovery pauses are calculated by the agent and decided by a support officer who has spoken to the person.
GL-PE-04 Payment runs are released by a finance delegate
Every cycle is prepared by the agent and released by the finance officer under the proper-use rules.
GL-PE-05 Overpayments from actual data, never averaged
A debt is calculated from the actual income and circumstances for each period, with the data and the arithmetic on the record. Annual income is never averaged across periods. The person is notified and given 28 days to respond before any recovery decision.
GL-PE-06 Held data used only with consent
Data the government already holds is used, and data matching run, only where the person has consented or the law authorises it, and the source is on the record.
GL-PE-07 Every notice carries reasons, the provision and review rights
No determination, variation, overpayment or hardship notice issues without them.
Reviews
Internal review by an officer not involved; then the external tribunal
| Subject | Requested by | Ground | Tier | Status | Resolve |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PE-76550 determination | L. Marsh | Residency assessed on an out-of-date record. | INTERNAL | IN REVIEW |