46 The ATO defines these terms as follows: ‘exceeded’ is where the ATO exceeded the client’s expectations and the ATO’s standards; ‘achieved’ is where the ATO met the client’s expectations and ATO’s standards; ‘improvement needed’ is where the ATO fell short of the client’s expectations and the ATO’s standards, but the right outcome for the client was still achieved; and ‘considerable improvement needed’ is where the ATO significantly failed to meet the client’s expectations and the ATO’s standards. The Australian Government approved Education’s proposal for an enhanced HELP database in November 2015, which should improve Education’s capacity to forecast HELP debt repayment. For students undertaking medicine, dentistry and veterinary science courses the limit was $122 162. Table 4.2: HELP non-lodger program results, Estimated number of non-lodgers with a HELP debt. The department is working with the ATO to review and enhance these processes to ensure future compliance risks associated with HELP are effectively identified, documented and addressed in one place. interviewing relevant ATO and Education staff and stakeholders; conducting data integrity testing to confirm that the ATO maintains the debt in line with requirements and monitors employer and payee obligations; examining complaints and objections information to identify potential issues with the ATO’s administration of the HELP debt and repayments; reviewing training and guidance material for ATO staff; and. The nation’s outstanding Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) debt at the end of 2019 totalled $66.4 billion, owed by 2.89 million Australians. Views 1393. Further, the ATO identified the potential impact to payees as receiving an incorrect benefit amount or incorrectly being denied a benefit. Approved Higher Education Providers and Vocational Education and Training institutions submit student debt information to Education using its online Higher Education Provider Client Assistance Tool. The ANAO suggests that the ATO update the HELP repayment calculator with the compulsory repayment income threshold amount earlier in, or prior to, the relevant financial year. Figure 5.1: Proportion of payees making compulsory HELP repayments, 2010–11 to 2012–13. Applications are required to be processed within 28 days. Nevertheless, issues with the integrity of data contained in files transferred from Education complicate the processes to upload the student debt data into the ATO’s Integrated Core Processing information technology system, and sometimes result in extensive manual data matching processes. The results of the assessments are provided to the team leaders of the quality assessors for coaching purposes. 5.32 Legislation supporting the project was passed by Parliament in November 2015. 1.12 In 2014–15, the value of repayments collected by the ATO for HELP was $1.9 billion or 4.7 per cent of the total outstanding HELP balance.4, Figure 1.2: Value and collection of HELP debt. 4.23 Minor enhancements that could be made to the Study Assist website include updating the Pay back my loan webpage to refer payees to myGov as well as to the ATO phone number to obtain information about their HELP debt. In 2013, this approach enabled it to match 93 per cent of payee records, which was higher than the match rate of 81 per cent achieved in 2012. The Australian Government Actuary estimated the value of the debt incurred for semester 1 2015 as $3.9 billion. 4.3 For Education, the services specified in the Memorandum of Understanding are providing the quarterly student debt files to the ATO and providing accurate CHESSN reports. HELP is regulated by provisions in the Higher Education Support Act 2003. Instead, these types of transactions are covered by general guidance on debts that will not be pursued by the ATO. 36 The ANAO reviewed the value of deferments from 2004–05 to 2014–15. Debts that have been waived cannot be pursued at a later date. examine other aspects of Education’s administration of HELP; verify the integrity of enrolment and debt information supplied by higher education providers; or. 58 myGov is a log-on account for Australians to access their government online accounts such as the ATO, Child Support and Medicare. The ANAO also suggested that the ATO update the HELP repayment calculator earlier each year (paragraph 2.24). 4.8 The ATO’s risk management framework refers to four risk categories: strategic, enterprise, operational and tactical.51 Enterprise risks are mapped to the ATO’s six strategic risks in an enterprise wide risk register.52 The framework indicates that enterprise and operational risks are to be managed through business line plans, and tactical risks should be managed through team plans. The ATO manages relatively few HELP write-offs, waivers and deferments, and applies its broader corporate policies and processes in this regard. 4.36 The ATO undertakes general employer compliance activities, including desk and field audits, and business-as-usual payee compliance activities that include coverage of HELP. The Australian Government provides income-contingent loans to eligible students through the Higher Education Loan Program (HELP), which removes up-front cost barriers to tertiary education and training. In addition to a lack of focus on examining the growth in HELP debt to support policy design, there is no risk-based strategy to target compliance efforts; the ATO and Education are not fulfilling their broader program risk management responsibilities; and the controls for recording students’ HELP debts need to be improved. 2.25 The ATO is also required to update the Pay-As-You-Go withholding rate information for employers: 2.26 The HECS-HELP Benefit aims to encourage graduates of maths, science, education and nursing study courses to gain employment in specified occupations. The MQ platform is expected to be operational from 1 July 2017. The ATO reports on HELP debt by size, HELP debt by state/territory of residence and HELP debtors by HELP repayment income. Should responsibility for preparing submissions be disseminated more widely, or be allocated to other officers, there would be merit in the ATO providing guidance on the circumstances in which the ATO would support a request for waiver. 4. The Actuary has also developed longitudinal records for each HELP debt payee that forms the basis of its data analysis. Following recent changes to the law, the ATO and the Department of Education are currently developing a Message Queue (MQ) platform which will streamline the process for reporting of debts to the ATO and allow for the redesign of the controls for more simpler and efficient recording, transfer and upload of HELP debts. Targeting clients who have an active Australian Business Number but who have not lodged an income tax return. Further, the guidance is outdated as it refers to the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 that was replaced by the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 on 1 July 2014. HELP administration was not presented as a focus in these reports. 73 Records held by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection may also be included in this database. In finalising its HELP communication strategy, it would be useful for the ATO to outline a forward work program. 1 Department of Education and Training, Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) [Internet], Education, available from [accessed April 2015]. 1. 3.6 As the ATO’s Integrated Core Processing system is unable to differentiate repayments by loan type, it is not possible to accurately quantify the value of bonuses associated with voluntary repayments for FEE-HELP and OS-HELP. Our staff add value to public sector effectiveness and the independent assurance of public sector administration and accountability, applying our professional and technical leadership to have a real impact on real issues. Parliamentary Friendship Groups (non-country), new data on the Higher Education Loan Program (HELP, formerly HECS) debts, Education and Other Legislation Amendment (VET Student Loan Debt Separation) Act 2018, VET Student Loan debts for vocational education and training students, House of Representatives chamber and business documents, Getting involved in Parliamentary Committees, Department of the House of Representatives. 4.27 None of the websites or brochures reviewed by the ANAO provided information in relation to the Minister for Finance debt waiver process. If you have obtained one of these loans, you will have a HELP debt. Voluntary repayments of more than $500, or that are less than $500 and will payout the HELP debt in full, attract a bonus of five per cent of the repayment amount. verify the Australian Government Actuary’s estimate of the value of the HELP debt expected to be collected. In particular, the program does not have a robust program of evaluation and review based on rigorous analysis of sound data. In 2014–15, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal received three applications for review; two of these were subsequently withdrawn and one was dismissed as it could not be reviewed by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The number of people with outstanding HELP debts was 2.9 million in 2019–20, down from 3.0 million in 2018–19 (Figure 2 below). of places for which VET FEE-HELP loans paid, Key performance indicators: Students who are able to repay their HELP debts do so, Proportion of new debt not expected to be repaid (per cent). 4.35 Education advised the ANAO that it undertakes a range of provider and student compliance activities, including: verifying student data; monitoring students’ FEE-HELP and VET FEE-HELP lifetime limits; and reconciling the funds distributed to providers based on estimated student placements against actual student placement data. Note *: When the Integrated Core Processing system was introduced in 2010, the HELP debt write-off functionality was not available. There was insufficient information available to test the accuracy of the ATO’s HECS-HELP Benefit processing. 13 Indexation maintains the real value of the debt by adjusting it in line with changes in the cost of living as measured by the consumer price index. The ATO has acknowledged shortcomings with its guidance on writing-off HELP debt and is revising its current guidance material. This process is effective when payees have sufficient Pay-As-You-Go withholdings to offset their compulsory repayments as these liabilities are deemed to be paid first from income tax withholdings. The ATO’s website does not include information about debt remittance, which is included on the Study Assist website. The remaining three projects in Table 4.1 have generally resulted in a larger average amount of compulsory repayments being raised against payees. 11 Message Queue (MQ) Platform is a data exchange platform that enables real time transfer of data between Education and the ATO. 4.41 The ATO had an existing program of work aimed at detecting underreported income, and advised that, in 2013–14 and 2014–15, this work resulted in $29.1 million in HELP compulsory repayments. Australian Taxation Office, Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) and Trade Support Loan (TSL) repayment calculator [Internet], ATO, available from [accessed October 2015]. 1.1 The Australian Government provides income-contingent loans to eligible students through the Higher Education Loan Program (HELP), ‘which removes up-front cost barriers to tertiary education and training’.1 Students are required to repay the loan(s) once their income reaches a minimum threshold. The ANAO also made five suggestions aimed at: enhancing the ATO’s communication strategy (paragraph 4.21); including additional information in the ATO’s and Education’s HELP information products (paragraphs 4.24, 4.25 and 4.27); and monitoring the target populations of the ATO’s non-lodger program in relation to HELP payees (paragraph 4.39). However, the ATO advised that full HELP account statements were not made available to avoid confusing payees.63 Nevertheless, the ATO’s website advises that payees can view their HELP debt account online, including indexation amounts, bonuses, benefits and payments. Are you a University or TVET institution with students who are HELB Loan beneficiaries? LEARN MORE. It is based on financial figures collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics over the previous two years. This process is outlined in Figure 1.3. 5.23 Figure 5.3 illustrates that there has been consistent growth in HELP debt since 2005. 10 These costs were calculated by the ANAO using parameters provided by the ATO. Pursuant to paragraph 5.3, Education should review the performance information in its annual reports to ensure it reflects the Australian Government’s higher education priorities. 7 When allocating a CHESSN, the Higher Education Information Management System conducts three searches to determine whether the student already has a CHESSN. Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) 2. Number of reviews undertaken, recommended for variation and varied. However, in mid-2015, the ATO expanded HELP processing responsibility to include a team of 20 staff who had not previously carried out this type of work. 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