Frequently asked questions

1. How long will it take to complete all the required details in the PACS Portal?

It should take less than an hour, depending on complexity and your familiarity with the process.

You’ll be able to answer many questions in the PACS Portal by referring to:

• your income and expenditure statement, for questions on the contract-level form, and
• your full organisation financial statements, for questions on the corporate-level form.

So have those documents on hand when entering your responses.

Each question in PACS may have a ‘more information’ section which can assist with answering. Also, questions don’t vary very much from year to year, so this makes it easier for you to complete the forms.

2. How do I find out who my DCJ contract manager is?

Your DCJ contract manager for the contract is listed in the PACS Portal.

When you navigate to a contract, the contract manager is listed with the rest of the contract details.

3. How and where can we add authorised signatories who are able to sign off on DCJ documentation?

You can provide the details of your board or committee members, as well as key executives, in the PACS Portal.

1. Add the individuals as ‘contacts’.
2. Assign them to the role of ‘Authorised signatory’.
3. If they are also a Board/committee member, you can also assign them to the role of ‘Board member’.

You can get further instructions on adding a user from the portal Help menu.

Find out more about authorised signatories

4. Why can’t service providers depreciate assets purchased using DCJ funds? If an asset isn't sold but eventually outlives its usefulness, can we include it in the depreciation schedule?

You may depreciate assets in your organisation's accounts, as required by the accounting standards.

However, don’t report asset depreciation in either the income and expenditure statements for DCJ contract reporting purposes or in the form on the PACS Portal.

This is because:

1. Any asset purchased with DCJ funds has already been claimed outright as an expense against the contract funding in the financial year of purchase.
2. To claim depreciation on the same asset in subsequent years is to claim an additional deduction for an expense already claimed.

5. Is there a set amount of funding that can be used for the purchase of assets?

You should check your contract requirements and discuss with your contract manager at first instance prior to purchase of any asset.

For some Permanency Support Program (PSP) contracted providers, changes to your requirements when purchasing assets will come into effect from 1 September 2025.

It is expected that your organisation performs a cost-benefit analysis to justify the proposed asset purchase, so that it doesn’t affect delivery on the contracted services.

6. What are the requirements for reporting administrative, fixed and variable overhead costs?

These indirect contract administration costs may have been incurred by you in support of delivering the services agreed in the contract with DCJ.

Your reporting requirements defines this further and lists expenses that may be included as indirect contract administration costs.

7. The reporting requirements and resources for 2024-2025 has a special note for Permanency Support Program (PSP) providers that payments for alternative care arrangements (ACA) must have a separate line in the income and expenditure statement. Does this also apply to individual placement arrangements (IPA) and Complex Needs Payments?

Yes. If you’ve received any payments outside of our contracting payments system (for example, on an invoice basis) for ACA, IPA and Complex Needs Payments for children and young persons in your care under the PSP contract, include a separate line item in your income and expenditure statement. Refer to the reporting requirements and resources for 2024-2025.

In addition, report such payments at item 7 on the contract-level form (other contract-related income).

8. We have accrued income based on what we believe the Permanency Support Program (PSP) clients should be paid by DCJ. Since the reconciliation hasn’t been completed by DCJ, this figure may change once the reconciliation is done. Should we include these? Also, in relation to Complex Needs Payments, we haven’t received confirmation from DCJ whether you agree with our figures, so we won't be able to accrue this income. Are they to be included at item 7 on the contract-level form?

Yes. Include Complex Needs Payments at item 7, and include a separate line item in the income and expenditure statement.

We understand there are cases of unreconciled amounts. In these cases, use the accounting standards revenue recognition criteria to accrue such income, and report accordingly at the contract level based on your reconciliations. If required, you may seek further advice from your external accountant or auditor.

We also understand that the accrued amount may differ to actual income received at a later stage, and subsequent adjustment to accrual may be required.

9. How do we report unspent Additional Care Support payments which were paid in advance?

To ensure DCJ does not inadvertently recover unspent Additional Care Support (ACS) payments which were paid in advance to service providers, record this unspent amount as at the end of the 2024-2025 financial year at item 8 of the contract-level form (adjustment to income or payments) as a negative value.  This will reduce the total income figure and exclude the amount from any surplus/deficit reported.

The same unspent ACS amount must be reported at item 4 (Income or payments in advance received in previous financial years) in the following year accountability submissions where it will form part of contract income.

10. How do we report alternative care arrangement (ACA) reimbursements?

Include payments for ACA at item 7 on the contract-level form (other contract-related income), and include a separate line item in the income and expenditure statement.

11. For Permanency Support Program (PSP) providers, does the prepopulated figure for income received from DCJ include payments for alternative care arrangement (ACA), individual placement arrangements (IPA) and Complex Needs Payments?

No. Payments outside of PACS Portal (for example, on an invoice basis) for ACA, IPA and Complex Needs Payments aren’t included in the prepopulated field at item 1 on the contract-level form.

Report such payments at item 7 on the contract-level form (other contract-related income), and include a separate line item in your income and expenditure statement.

12. What do we do if our organisation doesn’t comply with one of the paragraphs in either the service provider declaration for corporate-level accountability or the annual accountability certification for contract-level accountability?

The declaration (DOCX, 444.4 KB) and certification (DOCX, 443.9 KB) forms both include a table where you can list any exceptions to meeting the requirements, and the reasons for the exceptions.

Once submitted, your contract manager will review and get back to you about any issues or questions.

13. How do you report annual accountability for early terminating contracts?

There’s a process for managing accountability in the PACS Portal for early terminating contracts.

In the past we were able to issue accountability forms in the COMS Portal at any time. This is not the case in the PACS Portal, where there is only capacity to issue forms for a particular financial year once.

If you have an early terminating contract your contract manager will request you do the following:

1.      Where a contract is terminating but a service provider has ongoing access to the PACS Portal, complete the accountability process as normal.

2.     Where a contract is terminating, and the service provider is winding up and will not have access to the PACS Portal, the provider is requested to:

• upload a current income and expenditure statement, and signed certification at contract level in support of your contract accountability reporting requirement.
• upload a current audited financial statement and signed service provider declaration for corporate level in support of your corporate accountability reporting requirement.

14. What amount should be stated in the contract level certification as Total Income?

The total income amount in the contract level certification should be the total of all funding available for use for the contract for that financial year. This includes all DCJ contract funding, any approved unspent funds from prior financial year, interest earned on DCJ funds, proceeds from sale of DCJ funded assets and other DCJ contract related income.

15. What amount should we report at question 12.5 ‘Income in advance’ question?

The amount at question 12.5 should include, together with any other income in advance payable to any other organisations, all income in advance including any amount payable to DCJ at the end of that financial year. This includes any payments made by DCJ for use in the following financial year(s) and any unspent funds (either approved or unapproved) that your organisation would owe to DCJ at the end of that financial year. For clarity, this amount should also include any amount payable to DCJ from last or previous financial years that remains payable to DCJ at the end of the last reporting financial year.

You will note the corporate-level form question 13 is supplementary to question 12 as it further asks what portion of the amount declared in question 12.5 relates only to DCJ.