Compile claim and submit in TIO - overview

Introduction

This section describes the process for claiming funding assistance for approved activities managed and delivered by approved organisations.

State highway activities are subject to the same criteria, except that the process involves the Transport Agency determining accrued expenditure based on certified invoices, certificates of work done or progress reports, and directly paying contractors, consultants and other service providers. 

Disbursement accounts

Claiming process and Transport Agency expectations

Approved Organisations must claim funding assistance from the National Land Transport Fund via Transport Investment Online .  See TIO Claims User Manual for details on how to create and submit a claim.

The Transport Agency expects that Approved Organisations will:

• claim funding assistance on accrued expenditure, being the estimated value of work completed in a period, rather than wait for the supplier invoice before making their claims.
• submit regular claims through the year, usually monthly.  More than one claim can be submitted each month but not until the previous claim has been authorised.
• avoid leaving substantial claims to the end of each financial year and will ensure that their June/July claims are less than 15% of the annual expenditure. Ideally this should apply to each activity class.

Certifying claims

Unless the Transport Agency specifically requires otherwise, payment of funding assistance is dependent on the person that certifies the claim accepting responsibility for the appropriateness of design and construction/implementation procedures, and the quality of materials used.

For Approved Organisations, the value of work claimed must be certified by the organisation’s Chief Executive or approved delegate in TIO when the claim is submitted. While it is not necessary to hold a supporting invoice at the time of the claim, all amounts claimed must be supported by appropriate evidence in the form of certificates of the value of work done or progress reports certified by the Chief Executive or an approved delegate. Supporting evidence is to be held within the organisation’s records.

The certification of the claim will be taken to certify that the works were undertaken to a standard fit for their intended purpose.

The Public Finance Act 1989, s76 provides for the imposition of penalties on persons who give false certificates for the purpose of procuring for any programming organisation the improper payment of any public money.

Terms of trade

Submitted claims are authorised by the Transport Agency's regional representative and will be paid within 21 days of their receipt, unless the Transport Agency exercises its right to defer payment of June/July claims as set out below. 

The Transport Agency reserves the right to defer June/July payments in any year of those Approved Organisations that claim in excess of their March quarter forecasts or exceed 15% of their annual expenditure in their June/July claims. Application of these terms of trade will take into account any special requests by the Transport Agency on specific approved organisations to make late claims.

Claims for advanced works

If an approved project has an allocation in the following year, but work has been advanced in the preceding year, the following occurs:

• claims for the advanced works are to be submitted by the 2nd week in July with a request for a supplementary allocation
• such claims will be expensed against the preceding year if funds are available for reallocation within the NLTP. The following year’s allocation will be reduced accordingly.

Apart from the above, and with the exception of fees associated with development of indicative and detailed business cases or investigation/design, and of land purchase costs associated with approved projects, claimed expenditure on works in a previous financial year does not qualify for funding assistance in a subsequent year.

Final claims

Final claims are those for payment of the cost of activities completed to 30 June within the approved allocation.

Final claims, including supplementary allocations, must be based on actual expenditure and must be made by the 2nd week in July.  

Supplementary allocation

A supplementary allocation is an increase in allocation for an activity provided at the end of the financial year once the out-turn expenditure for that activity is known, and exceeds the current approved allocation.

Requests for supplementary allocations must be submitted as a review request by the 2nd week in July. 

All supplementary requests are to be entered as cashflow advances except that, if insufficient allocation exists in forward years, the request should be for a cost/scope adjustment.

Further details are provided in the following sections:

• Emergency Works
• Minor Improvements
• Other Programme Variations

A claim for the supplementary amount should be submitted as soon as the supplementary allocation is approved.

Claims subject

to audit

Claims for funding assistance are not checked in detail prior to payment. The Transport Agency will undertake periodic audits of selected claims. See Monitor Investment Performance for more details.

Transport Agency regional staff will regularly monitor the status of claims submitted and may ask to check the balance in the land transport disbursement account to ensure that large credit balances are not being held. Detailed examination automatically follows in any case reported to the Transport Agency by the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General.

Over-claims and refunds

Over-claims become a debt due to the Crown immediately upon establishment of the debt.

Where the Transport Agency agrees to a refund being made by instalments, interest is payable on any balance remaining to be paid.