Telephone rental costs for employment

Allowable costs for Temporary Additional Support can include rental of a basic telephone and telephone line rental costs (including wiring maintenance charges and mobile phone plans) for a client when the ongoing cost of the telephone is a condition of the client's paid employment. For example an electrical worker who is on-call 24 hours per day.

In addition, these costs must be regular and essential to meet the family's daily living needs and could not be readily avoided or varied when the expense was incurred.

Note the cost of buying a phone (including a mobile phone) or having it installed is not an allowable cost for Temporary Additional Support.

The cost of a mobile phone plan can be considered an allowable cost for Temporary Additional Support. This includes prepaid plans and account-based plans with regular instalments e.g. pay monthly plans.

The cost of purchasing a mobile phone through a plan is not included as an allowable cost for Temporary Additional Support. For example, paying for the phone in instalments.

If a client has a landline, then a mobile phone plan cannot be considered as an allowable cost. However, if the client does not have a landline, then a mobile phone plan may be considered as an allowable cost.

The maximum cost that can be included is the lowest amount to meet the client's needs. This should be no more than the cost of:

• a standard monthly landline rental in the client's local area or
• the cheapest mobile phone plan

whichever is cheaper.