It was a very encouraging endorsement, of chaplaincy services, to have 820 of our schools receive National School Chaplaincy Program (NSCP) grant funding. Schools were notified in the last week of term 2015, and we are still following up and receiving confirmations from individual schools regarding individual grant amounts.
The Department of Education and Training (DET) have a new process for the grant funds. Each school must supply a Purchase Order and schedule a contract before SU QLD can invoice for grant funds.
Each Purchase Order must be divided into 4 terms and include the number of hours and service fees. The majority of Purchase Orders we received in the first instance were incorrect and we have been individually following up with each school. This has been a huge administrative load and currently we have received 420 Purchase Orders, so there is still a long way to go.
As soon as we have received all the correct paperwork from schools we will be able to update your Budget Tool and provide you with all the information you need to understand your costs for the year. Thanks for your patience!
We are anticipating that chaplaincy service invoices will be paid as soon as possible. The changes in DET process have necessitated changes to our Salary Band process. This will now become an annual process so that we can let you know in October of each year what the cost will be for your service for the following year. We have also updated our Remote Incentive Policy and we will be explaining the changes in more detail at our LCC Forums.
Now that each LCC can be assured of the amount of grant funds for the next 3 years (2016 – 2018), each LCC can have the confidence to set their budget and continue to build and maintain a sustainable chaplaincy service.
We are currently updating the budget tool and chaplaincy cost calculator to further assist you in this process. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our dedicated Field Support team on (07) 3112 6073 or support@suqld.org.au.
Thank you so much for all you do as a team to provide a healthy chaplaincy service to your local school community. You are greatly appreciated!