5.11. Employment Insurance Benefits

POLICY

Authority OW Act: Sec. 7(1), 7(2), 7(3), 13, 16(1), 19(2) & OW Directives:  5.2

The following procedure is in place to ensure that payment of assistance made by Manitoulin-Sudbury DSB to persons who have claimed, but not yet received, Employment Insurance Benefits may be reimbursed by Service Canada and paid to the Manitoulin-Sudbury DSB.

Note: Reimbursement is made directly to Manitoulin-Sudbury DSB by the HRDC

Every time a Case Manager completes an assignment, a copy must be filed in the electronic filing system. Case Managers must input a task in the social assistance computer system for 3 months to follow up if the assignment has been paid. If the assignment has not been paid, Case Managers should follow up with clients to determine why the assignment was not honoured. 

Where assignments are not honoured or reimbursement is not received, an overpayment is established.

If a third party or person acting on behalf of a benefit unit member fails to deduct and remit money to the delivery agent, the benefit unit member remains eligible for assistance. However, if money is received that has been assigned and is not repaid to the delivery agent, an overpayment is established.

When payment is received by the Manitoulin-Sudbury DSB finance department from any external source (i.e. WSIB, CPP, EI, OSAP, etc.) A copy of the payment is sent to the Administrative Assistant who then posts it to the client’s file in the social assistance computer system.
 

PROCEDURE

The assignment of benefits is accomplished through the completion and submission to Human Resources Development Canada, on Form 3113 - Assignment of Benefit. 

The Case Manager must also record the amount of one week of basic allowance in the Minimum Living Allowance (MLA) section. 

Note: If participant is boarding, one week of the boarding and lodging allowance is recorded.

COMPLETION OF FORM 3113 

1. The upper section of the form should be completed by the Case Manager and signed by the applicant/participant. This part of the form is self-explanatory. Copy to be given to applicant/participant.

2. Option A or B should be completed noting the following points:  When only one payment of Ontario Works is made, this should be indicated in Option A by giving the amount and the date on which the assistance was paid, otherwise, the amounts should be prorated on a weekly basis relating to periods beginning with each Sunday (in option B)

Note: In the latter cases, it may not be possible to determine the exact amount of assistance issued as the weekly prorated figures should be rounded down to an even dollar.  

The assignment form does not necessarily have to be at the Service Canada office before the E.I.B. cheque for the relevant period is mailed.  If the assignment is late, Service Canada will collect a justified assignment from the subsequent week or weeks.  Manitoulin-Sudbury DSB has up to eight weeks to submit an assignment, but this concession should not be abused.  The assignment form should always be submitted after the payment of assistance is made.

Total amounts paid should be indicated in the three spaces provided above “Part A” of the “Social Service Office Use Only” section.

3. SERVICE CANADA

The bottom portion of the form informs the Administrator if the assignment is not accepted and gives the reason for non-acceptance. The following notes refer to the codes listed in this section.
 

REQUEST FOR ASSIGNMENT NOT ACCEPTED

Only one copy of the assignment form will be returned to Manitoulin-Sudbury DSB.  The other will be kept in the Service Canada office for three weeks in case the status of the applicant changes.