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DISCLOSURE LOG FOi 23/24-0807

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DOCUMENT 1 Governance summary document

Summary Initiative/Project Plan Continuations Start Date 22 February 2022 Status Ongoing DCEOs Service Delivery/Children, Specialised Services & Scheme Interfaces Stakeholders Frontline Services SES Leadership Team Performance, Quality and National Workload Management Branch

Background In 2020, the Agency had developed an auto-extension functionality in SAP CRM, that would automatically extend a plan beyond its end date, if it was not reassessed before the plan expired. This functionality was initially introduced at the commencement of the COVID-19 pandemic, due to concerns the Agency’s workforce may be impacted by the pandemic, to the extent it was not possible to reassess all participant plans before they expired, leaving participants without funds.

In November 2021 the Service Delivery Leadership Team (SOLT), led by DCEO Jeremy Dean, sought to introduce a strategy that would provide a better experience for participants with upcoming scheduled reassessments and to help manage the volume of plans that were reaching their end date each week. The option of utilising the system built auto-extension functionality to continue a participant’s plan for a further 12 months, without intervention by a planner delegate, was explored.

It was further discussed that the Agency needed to provide participants with some more of communication to advise their plan was going to be continued and to explain what this meant. It was agreed a letter would be sent to the participant explaining the plan continuation, how they could access the supports in their continued plan and detailing the process for participants to follow if they did not wish for the plan to be continued, but rather required a scheduled reassessment.

Initial Recommendation/Decision The initial decision to proceed with preparing an executive brief recommending plan continuations for participants with plans in SAP CRM was made by SOLT in the Peak Production forum in November 2021. This decision involved developing an executive brief with the following key elements for approval:

Identifying which participants would not receive a plan continuation, based on a risk assessment process related to the participant’s age, disability, complexity of circumstances, plan utilisation and a number of other factors related to specific cohorts of participants. These factors became known as the plan continuation exclusion criteria.
An initial focus on sending plan continuation letters to a number of participants whose plans had already auto-extended in the system and for whom Service Delivery did not have sufficient capacity to reassess their plans.
A secondary focus on establishing a monthly process of identifying which participants with plans expiring each month, based on the risk assessment process above, would receive a plan continuation and proactively sending those participants a plan continuation letter before their plan expired.

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Determining the wording of the plan continuation letter and how many days before the plan expiry date they needed to be sent to participants.
Confirm a specific end date up to which the initiative was approved to operate, with any further extension of that approval date to be made by SDLT in the Peak Production forum.

The subsequent executive brief (EC21-000730) was signed by DCEO Jeremey Dean on 1 February 2022.

Approval documents/briefing papers

The Plan Continuation strategy has featured a number of executive briefing papers, as detailed below.

Document type Document No. Document link Brief description Exec brief EC21-000730 1st po Non-Deliberate Auto Extension Remediation Exec brief EC22-000135 scum rie Plan Continuation Proactive Strategy F PF Plan Continuation Proactive Exec brief EC22-000135 | Strategy (Addendum) Exec brief EC23-001768 | Mumm | fdustment to Flan Continuation Adjustment to Plan Continuati . justment to Plan Continuation as See Et a Exclusion Criteria (Addendum)

Initial implementation

The first rounds of letters, sent to participants whose plans had already auto-extended in the system, were sent in February and April 2022. The first round of plan continuation letters sent to participants whose plans were yet to reach their end date, was sent in May 2022 and each month thereafter.

This initiative was coordinated and implemented by the National Workload Management Team and continues to be coordinated by the same team today.

Subsequent Recommendations/Decisions

During the course of the Plan Continuation initiative a number of enhancements and changes have been made to the strategy, including:

e Multiple amendments to the exclusion criteria to either include or exclude cohorts of participants based on changing priorities or workforce capacity constraints. Details of these decision are outlined below in the Key Milestones table.

e Changes to the timeframes regarding the posting of letters, resulting in letters being sent earlier to participants to account for a change on practice and timeframes with the introduction of PACE in October 2023.

e Discovery, design and development of an automated plan continuation process in the new PACE CRM system

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e Remediation required for a defect that occurred in PACE in March 2025 impacting plan continuations and letters.

Key milestones

Key milestones in the Plan Continuation initiative are detailed below.

Date

09/05/2022

Milestone

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: Endorsed - Plan continuation strategy to be extended for a further 3 months. (Sept, Oct, Nov 2022)

11/08/2022

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: Endorsed - Plan continuation strategy agreed for December 2022 to March 2023 period noting risks discussed and cohort inclusion / exclusion decisions made.

25/08/2022

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: TAS participants excluded from plan continuation strategy for December 2022 to March 2023 period.

10/11/2022

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: Proceed with plan continuations for the month of April 2023. Review of May and June 2023 numbers with previous plan continuations being current exclusion criteria.

16/01/2023

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: Endorsed — Plan continuations to occur in May and June 2023.

28/02/2023

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: Endorsed — Plan continuations to be extended to the end of September 2023. Criteria expansion discussed and endorsed.

27/03/2023

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: Endorsed — As part of the plan continuation strategy, for the 5,000 calls that are required to be made, if any of the 5,000 have had a meaningful contact in the last 2 months, that they do not require the check in call.

19/06/2023

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: Endorsement sought — extension of Plan Continuations from October 23 to January 2024.

28/08/2023

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: Endorsed — In principal agreement to use the expanded criteria for plans expiring in December 2023 and onwards.

04/09/2023

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: In principal agreement to the revised

Plan Continuation Criteria. Action required regarding brief to be provided to DCEO for endorsement. (Brief to be located)

09/10/2023

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: Agreement for March participants to have plan continuations using the current criteria. Decisions for April and May to be made closer to due dates.

15/01/2024

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: Agreement to progress with a 20% plan continuation rate for June scheduled reviews with a similar logic as applied to previous month.

18/01/2024

Out of Session — DECISION: DCEO Endorsed — Plan Continuation rate for Early Childhood participants (0-6 years) at a rate of 50% for June — August 2024.

26/02/2024

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: Endorsed — Plan Continuations to continue from May onwards. Action required regarding criteria for Plan Continuations. Targeting 75% with longer durations (2-year duration).

04/03/2024

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: Endorsed -

Plan Continuation letters are sent to another 7,731 participants with plans expiring in Apr-Jun, using March 2024 Plan Continuation criteria
Send letters to 65,643+ participants with plans expiring in Jul/Aug, using March 2024 Plan Continuation criteria that no longer excludes SIL participants (subject to risk assessment)

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Date Milestone

The Transition Cases for all of the above participants are either suppressed or quarantined in PACE

Out of Session — DECISION: Plan Continuation strategy approved beyond 31 August 2024.

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: Endorsed - Current rate of Plan Continuations endorsed up until end of September 2024.

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: Endorsed — Plan Continuations for October 2024.

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: Endorsed - extending the approval for SAP CRM plan continuations up to 30 June 2025.

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: Endorsed — Plan Continuations for plans expiring up to 31 December 2025.

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: Endorsed - SAP CRM plan continuations approved for plans expiring up to 31 March 2026. This earlier date was decided on to allow sufficient time to determine progress with the SAP to PACE auto-migration process.

Peak Production meeting - DECISION: Endorsed - SAP plan continuations for 29/09/2025 plans expiring up to 30 June 2026, whilst noting if the SAP to PACE auto- migration project goes ahead, this process is to be ceased.

19/04/2024

27/05/2024

11/06/2024

24/06/2024

04/11/2024

03/02/2025

14/07/2025

Monitoring

The Plan Continuation initiative is monitored operationally by the National Workload Management Team in the Performance, Quality and National Workload Management branch. This includes regular checks to ensure the volume of PACE plan continuations being generated is consistent with projections and expectations and through the monthly generation of the dataset required to support the manual plan continuation in SAP CRM.

Strategic monitoring of the initiative is undertaken through the Peak Production forum with regular updates on the status of the initiative, plan continuation volumes, any issues associated with the implementation of the initiative, proposed changes or enhancements to the initiative and relevant approvals required to continue the initiative.

Post Implementation Review and Outcomes

The Plan Continuation initiative is an ongoing process of the Agency and monitoring and review is conducted through the processes detailed in Monitoring above.