Q&A Issue no. 4 (Wednesday 5 December 2012)
PHaMs Employment
Q. Can Disability Employment Services which are currently providing employment services and are funded by DEEWR apply for PHaMs Employment and General funding?
A. Any eligible organisation can apply for funding to deliver PHaMs services in the Coverage Areas listed in the Program Guidelines and in the Application Form.
Coverage Areas
Q. If you are applying for the PHaMs Funding in a specific region (e.g Charles Sturt/West Torrens in South Australia), do you need to be currently providing community mental health services in that area/post code?
A. No, any eligible organisation can apply for funding to deliver PhaMs services in the Coverage Areas listed in the Program Guidelines and in the Application Form.
Q. For the Personal Helpers and Mentors funding, the Queensland sites are limited to Brisbane when I checked on the map. We are in Logan and fall outside of this area. Are we then unable to apply for our region?
A. Yes. At this time PHaMs funding is only available for the Local Government Areas listed on the FaHCSIA website and in the Application Form.
Q. Could you advise me if the Liverpool/ Fairfield area will be open to a new PHaMs service or funding given to existing or specialist providers?
A. Any eligible organisation can apply for funding to deliver PHaMs services in the Coverage areas listed in the Program Guidelines and Application Form for the type of service listed. Applications are being sought for a new specialist PHaMs employment site in the Liverpool/ Fairfield area. Applications for this site are not restricted to existing providers.
Q. I note that new PHaMs services must be in the Coverage Area - we are based in Warwick (a non-metropolitan area) about 2 hours from Ipswich. Would the Ipswich metropolitan Coverage Area stretch as far as us?
A. Boundaries of the Local Government areas are available through the Australian Local Government Association at www.alga.asn.au. Any eligible organisation, both within and outside the Coverage Area, can apply to deliver PHaMs services in any of the Coverage Areas listed in the Program Guidelines and in the Application Form.
Q. Could you clarify whether there is an opportunity to apply for PHaMs funding in the southern NSW region. The Border Mail published an advertisement calling for applications. The FaHCSIA website does not list this region is one of the Coverage Areas identified for the establishment of new Personal Helpers and Mentors services.
A. PHaMs funding is only available for Local Government Areas within the Coverage Areas listed on the FaHCSIA website and in the Application Form.
The funding round has been advertised nationally to ensure that all eligible organisations are aware of the opportunity to apply for funding to deliver services in the sites listed on the FaHCSIA website and in the Application Form.
Q. Could you please provide clarification of the service areas in WA that are available for open selection.
A. Providers for new PHaMs services in all of the sites listed on the FaHCSIA website will be selected through an open competitive selection process.
Application Form
Q. Could you please clarify the number of attachments allowed for each application? For example, organisational documents like a Service Framework or Letters of Support from other organisations.
A. In accordance with section 3.6 of Part C1 of the Program Guidelines, Applicants should only include attachments where requested to do so. Selection Criteria 3, 4 and 5 all ask for supporting evidence. The attachments must be referred to in the response to be included as part of the assessment.
Q. Could you please clarify whether attachments consisting of Letters of Support will be considered for Q28:
“The extent to which the Applicant demonstrates that it is connected with service networks and social infrastructure operating in the particular Coverage Area.”
A. As the selection criterion asks for supporting evidence, this can be provided in the form of attachments.
Q. If we want to apply for both “a general PHaMs service” and “a specialist PHaMs employment service”, do we have to submit two separate applications?
A. Yes.
Q. The Application Form asks for information about any applications for FaHCSIA funding made by our organisation in the past 12 months. The Application Form only allows room for details of five applications. If we have applied for more than five FaHCSIA grants in the past 12 months, do we just include the most recent five?
A. We require details of all applications for FaHCSIA funding in the past 12 months. If there is insufficient room on the Application Form, Applicants should provide further details in an attachment.
Q. Could you please clarify whether responses to the estimated budget question (Q23) is restricted to the line items and format provided?
A. Yes. Any additional items may be included in the ‘other’ section at the bottom of the budget table.
Q. The budget template allows for the purchase of assets. Could you clarify whether additional funds are available for the purchase of vehicles/leases and office furniture and equipment, in addition to the nominated annual recurrent funding i.e.: Metro $439,776; Non-Metro $486,604 and Remote: $527,730.
A. Establishment funding will be provided to successful applicants for new PHaMs services. However, the amount of establishment funding to be provided has not yet been determined, and will depend on a range of factors, such as location of services and service type.
Other Issues
Q. The website states that “it is anticipated that the rollout of new services will occur in February, May and August 2013”. Is any more detail available about these rollout dates? Who determines the rollout date? Successful tenderer or FaHCSIA or negotiated? Or is there a set date for each PHaMs site? Most particularly, I wish to know whether my organisation would be able to make application with a condition that we commence in February.
A. No further detail is available for the rollout of new services as final decisions are yet to be made. No guarantees can be made that particular sites will be commenced in February 2013.
Q. Could you please provide clarification on the different services required under each of the following services models: New PHaMs Service, Specialist PHaMs Employment Service and New combined PHaMs and PHaMs employment.
A. Please refer to Part C1 of the Program Guidelines for details on the different PHaMs service types.
Q. We believe that the funding being allocated is less than the current PHaMs service providers receive. Are you able to confirm this?
A. A standard funding formula is used to determine funding allocations for PHaMs services. Rates differ between metropolitan, non-metropolitan and remote sites.
Q. Can you please clarify if the PHaMs team composition is 5 EFT or 5 team members? In the answer to Question 8.14, the implication is that it is a team of 5 individual staff, rather than a team comprised of 5 FTE.
A. The PHaMs team is expected to have five team members. Further information on PHaMs service providers is available at section 4.5.2 in Part C1 of the Program Guidelines.
Q. Can you please clarify whether the required online reporting systems and assessment tools provided by FaHCSIA are entirely web-based or whether it requires server hosting?
A. The online reporting systems and assessment tools are web-based.
Q. For an employment extension to an existing PHaMs service, is there flexibility around the amount of staff we can employ? (E.g. could we employ one worker with additional resources, or are we required to recruit two?) There are several challenges such as vehicle requirements, fuel etc. and we are concerned that the amount of funding will not cover two workers, two vehicles etc.
A. Organisations that successfully apply for an employment extension to their existing PHaMs service must recruit two workers.
Q. Can you provide clarification on the funding and staffing model? Specifically, do PHaMs providers need to employ 5 full time dedicated staff under this contract or is there some flexibility as the funding does not seem to be enough to fully cover the costs of this staffing profile and the costs associated with running the program.
A. The PHaMs team is expected to have five team members, some of whom may be employed on a part time basis in order to allow flexibility.
Q. When and how is the funding paid (e.g Annually, Quarterly or Monthly)?
A. An initial payment will be made on signing of the funding agreement, funding is then paid six monthly in January and July each year directly to the organisations nominated bank account.
Q. When developing the proposed budget for new site are one off set up costs (e.g. office equipment, IT and phones) required to be met under the $486,604 amount for a regional service?
A. No. The Department is providing establishment funding to successful applicants for new PHaMs services. The amount of establishment funding to be provided has not yet been determined, and will depend on a range of factors, such as location of services and service type.
Q. Can you please define ‘lived experience’? Does it mean a person who has mental health issues themselves (and has recovered, or is in recovery themselves), or, someone who has had a relationship with a person with mental health issues (such as a parent, sibling, partner, etc.), or, does it mean a person who has experience working (in a paid support role) directly with people who have mental health issues?
A. A Peer Support Worker is a worker with a lived experience of mental illness, who is living well and is able to support others experiencing mental illness to work towards recovery.
Q. We currently deliver PHaMs and employ staff under the SACs Award which will see wage increases of around 23 to 45 per cent to be phased in over nine annual instalments from 1 December 2012 to 1 December 2020. As the Government has identified PHaMs as one of the programs that is within the scope of the Equal Remuneration Order I would like to know if there will be Commonwealth Supplementation for wage increases on top of the funding specified at paragraph 4.2 of Part C1 of the Program Guidelines or do we need to build these wage increases for 5 staff into the funding specified?
A. Yes, organisations may be eligible to receive Commonwealth SACS Award supplementation in addition to the funding amounts listed in the Program Guidelines and the Application Form. The Department will ascertain the eligibility of all successful Applicants for supplementation, and include the supplementation in funding arrangements.