Over the past month, CHIA has been working with the National Association of Housing Providers (NAHP) and the Commonwealth Department of Social Services (DSS) on giving National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) investors more timely advice on the status of their incentive claims.

The aim is to improve transparency and accountability under the NRAS arrangements.

DSS will soon begin publishing lists of the dwellings they have received incentive claims for, the date the claims were lodged and the date they were processed. These regular updates should reduce the number of inquiries to the department and to providers from NRAS property owners about the status of their claims.

By including the date the incentive claim was lodged,  the investor will be reassured that the processing of the claim was progressing rather than wondering if the claim had been submitted at all. This will also give the investor has some idea of when to expect their Refundable Tax Offset certificate or payment from the approved provider.

This is one of a series of process improvements that DSS, CHIA, and NAHP have been working on in response to the unflattering audit report on the scheme that was released last year.

Providers involved in the NRAS would have noticed that the department has reduced its turn-around time for processing claims to an average of 32 days this year, which is roughly a third of the time taken in past years.