SCHADS Broken Shifts, Sleepovers and Travel Time

A home-care roster can contain short visits, travel between participants, a long unpaid gap and overnight support. Treating those records as one total of hours hides the award questions that determine pay. Was the employee still working while travelling? Did an unpaid gap create a broken shift? Was an overnight period a sleepover or active work? Did each separate work period satisfy its minimum payment?

This guide explains how to review those questions under the SCHADS Award, MA000100, checked on 12 October 2026. It concerns employees covered by that award, particularly home-care employees and social-and-community-services employees undertaking disability work. Confirm coverage, classification, employment type and any enterprise agreement before calculating a shift. Residential aged-care workers may be covered by different awards. The examples are fictional and use hypothetical base pay; they are not prescribed classification rates.

Start with a timeline of work, travel, meal breaks, unpaid gaps and any overnight period. Record actual start and finish times as well as the planned roster. A cancellation or an extra visit can change the pattern that payroll must review.

A meal break is not an unpaid break that creates a broken shift under clause 25.6. Nor can a break inside an applicable minimum-payment period automatically become unpaid. The award treats that time as worked for the broken-shift assessment. Those distinctions matter when a coordinator labels every gap between visits as unpaid.

Ask the worker and coordinator what happened during a disputed interval. Required travel, telephone work or documentation may mean it was working time. A clear recorded explanation is more useful than a generic roster label. Resolve uncertainty before approving the pay calculation and retain the original schedule alongside the correction.

Clause 25.6 applies to home-care employees and social-and-community-services employees undertaking disability-services work. A broken shift with one unpaid break contains two work periods. A pattern with two unpaid breaks contains three work periods and requires agreement under the clause; check whether each occasion needs agreement or is covered by the employee’s agreed regular pattern.

The span must not exceed twelve hours. Work beyond that span attracts the specified double-time payment. Separately, ordinary weekend, public-holiday and overtime rules still need review. Calling a day a broken shift does not replace those rules with a single allowance.

The broken-shift allowances in clause 20.12 are 1.7% of the standard rate for one unpaid break and 2.25% for two. The consolidated award lists $21.81 and $28.87 respectively from the July 2026 adjustment. Check the applicable date and use the current award when approving a later pay period.

For part-time and casual employees, clause 10.5 sets a three-hour minimum payment for social-and-community-services work other than disability services. Other covered part-time and casual work, including home care, has a two-hour minimum. The provision concerns minimum payment at the appropriate rate, not a requirement to invent extra delivered services.

Consider a fictional part-time home-care employee with work from 7 am to 8.30 am and a separate work period from 4 pm to 6 pm. If the morning work period attracts the two-hour minimum, payroll cannot pay only ninety minutes because the whole day contains more than two hours. Review each relevant work period.

If the worker continues with paid travel and another visit within that morning period, establish its true finish before adding a top-up. Keep minimum-payment adjustments distinct from client service delivery and eligibility for claiming. Paid hours and delivered care are different records.

Fair Work’s broken-shift and travel guidance explains why travelling between work locations cannot simply be treated as an unpaid gap. Assess whether the travel forms part of work, falls within a minimum-payment period or occurs during a genuine unpaid break. Record the actual arrangement rather than assuming every journey has identical treatment.

Paying travel time does not reimburse the cost of using a vehicle. Where an employee is required and authorised to use their own motor vehicle in the course of duties, clause 20.7 provides a kilometre allowance. The temporary rate is $1.05 per kilometre from 1 September 2026 to 28 February 2027; clause 20.7(a) specifies $1.01 from 1 July to 31 August 2026 and from 1 March 2027.

Record the authorisation, relevant kilometres and date. Do not add ordinary commuting automatically, and do not deduct paid travel time because a kilometre allowance was paid.

Clause 25.7 describes an eight-hour continuous sleepover with the required room, facilities and board arrangements. The sleepover allowance is 4.9% of the standard rate. It is a separate entitlement from pay for work performed around or during the sleepover.

Work during the sleepover is paid at the prescribed overtime rate, with a minimum payment equivalent to one hour. When work exceeds one hour, pay its actual duration. The clause does not establish a fresh one-hour minimum for every disturbance. Keep a record of each event and the total duration so the reviewer can apply the actual rule.

Where work is rostered immediately before or after a sleepover, at least one adjacent work period must be rostered or paid for at least four hours. Check the June 2026 changes to ordinary hours, overtime and separate loading assessment before and after the sleepover. An active overnight shift must not be relabelled as a sleepover merely to reduce its cost.

Assume a fictional part-time home-care employee has a hypothetical ordinary rate of $40 per hour. On a weekday, the employee works from 7 am to 9 am, including required travel between visits, then has a genuine unpaid gap and works from 4 pm to 6 pm. Assume these are ordinary hours, no other loading applies and the one-break pattern satisfies clause 25.6.

The two work periods contain four paid hours: 4 × $40 = $160. Each period satisfies the two-hour minimum. Add the one-break allowance of $21.81. If the employer required and authorised twenty kilometres of own-vehicle travel during duties on a date covered by the temporary rate, reimbursement is 20 × $1.05 = $21. The illustrated components total $202.81.

This excludes superannuation, tax and other possible entitlements. If either work period changes, the unpaid gap is not genuine, or weekend or overtime rules apply, recalculate the relevant components. Do not reuse this total as a published award rate.

Statura’s existing SCHADS payroll software page describes classification-based shift costing, minimum-engagement checks and payroll-ready exports. Use those capabilities to bring the worker record, shift and calculation into the same review. They support an accountable payroll process; the employer still determines coverage and approves the inputs.

A useful review sequence is to confirm classification, reconcile worked time, identify work periods and breaks, apply the relevant ordinary or overtime treatment, review allowances and then inspect the export. Keep a reason for manual adjustments. A software warning is an invitation to resolve the record, not authority to ignore the employee’s entitlement.

For wider context, read the payroll compliance guide and workforce compliance guide. Give payroll a repeatable exception list, including missing vehicle authorisation, uncertain break treatment and overnight work without an event record.

Can the reviewer explain why a gap is unpaid? Is the two-break agreement available? Has each work period been checked against the relevant minimum payment? Are sleepover disturbances recorded separately from the allowance? Is own-vehicle reimbursement supported by authorisation and kilometres? Did a changed shift trigger another overtime or loading review?

Keep the award version and effective date with the review procedure. A temporary allowance must have an end date, and a corrected worker classification should prompt review of affected calculations rather than silently changing future shifts only.

Where facts remain disputed, seek the appropriate Fair Work or employment advice and document the resolution. This is especially useful for mixed work, enterprise agreements and unusual overnight arrangements. Accurate payroll begins with an accurate description of the work, not a more elaborate spreadsheet formula.