The Federal Government will make it more difficult for injured Commonwealth employees to get one-off lump compensation payouts by tightening the guidelines to determine whether a person is permanently impaired.

The changes, which will come into effect on March 1, are detailed in Comcare’s new “Guide to the Assessment of the Degree of Permanent Impairment”, released by Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews today.

Only members of the armed forces will be excluded from the revised guidelines.

The changes come at a time when large national companies such as Optus are trying to move from state workers’ compensation schemes to the federal system.