Employer news - summer 2019

A simple change to help our new PSSap members

We have been surveying new members of PSSap for some time now and have gained valuable insights into how we can better support them to make the most of their superannuation journey. They also helped us identify processes that aren’t working to their full potential.
One issue we uncovered was that a number of members don’t recall receiving their welcome letter if it was sent to a work email address. The majority of our new members have expressed a preference for personal email contact from us.
To help us, we are asking employers to set up new PSSap members with personal email addresses where possible. This will help ensure PSSap members are fully informed about their account and insurance entitlements, and allows them to make any changes in the required timeframes. 


CSC is a founding silver sponsor of the Canberra Mother’s Day Classic event. The Mother’s Day Classic is an annual community fun run and walk which raises funds and awareness for breast cancer research. Events are held across the country on Sunday 12 May 2019 and we would love to see you there!
We are running a competition between agencies in Canberra to see who has the highest percentage of participants per agency. The winner gets a trophy and bragging rights for the year! Registrations are now open. Jump onto the website to register and find more information: www.mothersdayclassic.com.au

Applications for invalidity retirement—new and changed forms

If you're applying for an invalidity retirement certificate (IRC) for an employee, make sure you're using the latest version of the application form on our website.
There have been recent changes to the CSS and PSS IRC application forms. The forms now better incorporate the information we need from your payroll team and have a helpful checklist of documents you need to submit in your application.
We have also created a PSSap IRC application form, which can be found in the forms section of our website. 
New report checklists have been published to help doctors address our requirements when they assess a member for invalidity retirement or a partial invalidity pension. These checklists are in the insurance and invalidity section. 
Watch this space for more to come in 2019!

Change to PSS and CSS invalidity retirement process

We recently streamlined our assessment of CSS and PSS invalidity retirement certificate (IRC) applications, and there has been a change to evidence requirements. You no longer need to provide a SM2 form completed by an independent medical examiner when submitting an IRC application for an employee. 

Employer training feedback can now be done online

To help us to better analyse and action your responses, feedback for employer training sessions is now all done online.
After your training session, you will be emailed a survey about the training you received. The survey only takes a few minutes to complete. Your feedback is very valuable to us as it helps us to keep delivering useful training sessions, and lets us know how we can improve.
Please feel free to let us know of any ways we can help to make your job easier. We are listening closely to your suggestions and are already working on a few improvements based on your feedback. For example, there will be online training modules coming to our website in 2019 to give you access to more information at a time that suits you.

We’ve decommissioned our old PO Box
Our current postal address is GPO Box 2252 Canberra ACT 2601.
Our old postal address, PO Box 22, has now been decommissioned, and any mail sent to that PO Box will be returned to sender. 
Please ensure that you have updated your records to reflect our new postal address. 

Thank you for responding to our Employer Survey

We have had a great response to our Employer Relationship Survey, and we are now working through understanding the results and identifying changes we can make to better support you and your employees.
We asked some questions about insurance in both our employer and member surveys. We are excited to use these results to improve our products and services and will be publishing a paper with the findings soon.
If you have any questions about our customer research, or want to provide feedback, please contact your Employer Relationship Manager or email us at feedback@csc.gov.au.

Guiding our members to financial fitness

This quarter, we are reaching out to our members to help them get financially fit, showing them how they can make simple changes to make the most of their super. The simple actions we are helping members to understand and consider are: 
1. Consolidate their super
2. Get financial advice
3. Make additional contributions
4. Understand their investment options
You can check out the campaign at www.csc.gov.au/Members/Financial_fitness

New year, new team structures

If your agency has experienced a restructure with the New Year (or at any time in the future), please get in contact with your Relationship Manager and let them know. It’s important that we are up to date with the latest changes in your organisation so we have the best contacts to provide the support you need.

If you’re unsure who your Relationship Manager is, call our Employer Service Desk on 1300 338 240 so we can get you in touch with the right person.

Getting records right for ceasing employees

For any CSS or PSS members transferring to another agency, or ceasing employment and membership, you can request member data reports from us to ensure member contributions and EPSC (productivity) are balanced before a member leaves. This will save time later on if we identify any issues and need to verify information with you, and will also ensure we can provide members with accurate statements and benefit information.  Simply email employer.service@csc.gov.au with your request. 

For CSS and PSS members ceasing membership, we are unable to accept member contributions after exit even if their record is short-paid. By requesting reports from us early, any short-paid accounts can be fixed in time.

If you are ceasing a member and they are not transferring to another agency, remember to supply us with a copy of a departmental report and their salary history. We will be in touch if there are any discrepancies with the member’s record. A copy of the member’s data reports will be provided to help you identify where the discrepancy occurred if this is the case. You can send any benefit applications to formsandapplications@csc.gov.au prior to the member’s cease date.

For PSSap members ceasing employment, please remember to report an exit date so that we can get in touch with the member and let them know about their insurance cover.

Rather than waiting for the end of an SG quarter, for PSSap members on fortnightly contribution salary (FCS) you may also wish to check if there is a shortfall payment due and make this payment in their last pay. This will avoid having to restart the member and pay any amounts after they have left your agency.
If you choose to wait until the end of a quarter to identify any shortfall amounts, please let us know via email to employers@pssap.com.au that you are only making a shortfall payment and the member is not restarting employment with you. Otherwise, they are automatically started on a new membership and they will receive a membership welcome letter from us.