Revenue (Type 3) client files - Family Maintenance Branch (GRS/6636)
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About this series
Access Determination
Whole of series: Open after 100 years. D10/00908. Signed 04/01/2010."
Retention status
Permanent. RDS 2007/09 v1: 2.5.5;;;;Until 2002 the files were transferred to State Records in temporary consignments. Consignments 1-6 were addressed by State Records' Backlog Project in 2002, following a revision of RDS 2000/17 which required revenue files to be retained for 105 years instead of 7 years. Those consignments in State Records custody as at June 2002 were transferred to its contracted temporary records storage provider, Ausdoc Information Management. The records were re-sentenced to permanent retention in 2010 in accordance with Records Disposal Schedule 2007/09 v1, and the consignments were transferred back into the custody of State Records.;;
Description
The Revenue (Type 3) files, which were also known as Private Payment files, document maintenance payments for children who were placed under the care and control of the Minister, or who were fostered privately. A child was placed into care by
(a) a court order
(b) at the request of the parent(s) or guardian of the child, or
(c) at the request of the child who was over the age of fifteen years.
The files may include the financial situation of families, payment maintenance for children, and overpayment of funds to foster parents and the subsequent recovery action. The contents of the files rarely indicated whether the children were of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent.
A form 557 that included the family particulars was completed and this enabled the Family Maintenance Branch to determine the extent of the parents' ability to contribute towards the support of the child. Payments were made in advance. At times these payments were irregular, resulting in an overpayment to the foster parent(s). Overpayments also occurred when a child left the placement early. In such cases it was the foster parents who had to repay the money. In some situations the Department's recovery process was put into action, and the local office interviewed the foster parents to ascertain why they had not responded. If financial hardship was proven, further recovery action ceased.
The files have a two-tiered number, but have been archived alphabetically by the surname of the person making payments.
Consignments in this series This series contains these consignments
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