Establishing family members 
as household members and processing dependency benefits requires considerable advance preparation on the part of the HR Partner, and staff member.
HR Partner’s responsibility – Eligibility Review:
- Review the staff member’s appointment status in Umoja (view contract data via PA20) to ensure eligibility for the dependency allowance.
- Review and use policy and guidelines to verify eligibility for household members to be UN recognized family members.
- Review staff member’s current family member profile in Umoja (view family member/dependants via PA20), noting the existing family members and checking for the following circumstances:
- No duplicate requests, i.e. adding the same child twice or adding an additional recognized spouse;
- Claim of EITHER a dependent spouse OR a secondary dependant (Staff members cannot establish both as dependants. In cases of two staff married to each other, only the higher salaried staff member can claim dependency;
- Staff members in General Services & related categories do not exceed the maximum of 6 dependent children, if applicable.
- Review staff member’s official status file for official documents (as listed below) related to UN recognized family members. If the official documents are not on file, the staff member must be instructed by the HR Partner to take action to submit them as per the chart below. The HR Partner will not approve any dependency requests without seeing and verifying original supporting documentation, even if a non-verified copy has been attached to the ESS application.
The staff member’s responsibility:
- Staff members are required to provide official documentation that clearly shows the relationship between the staff and the family member. The staff member may submit documentation to create a household member and later on create a dependency request or both may be submitted at the same time. Dependency is established when it is determined that the family member is financially dependent on the staff member. To claim dependency for these family members, the staff member must also provide some additional documentation as per the chart in Dependant Types
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Last modified:
17 March 2022