(a) The department shall work with the County Welfare Directors Association of California, representatives of county eligibility workers, the Statewide Automated Welfare System, and client advocates to develop and implement the necessary system changes to prepopulate the semiannual report form described in Section 11265.1.
(b) Upon certification that the Statewide Automated Welfare System can perform the necessary automation to implement this section, and to the extent permitted by federal law, counties shall provide recipients with a prepopulated semiannual report, either via mail or electronically, at the election of the recipient, instead of a blank form to comply with the requirement described in paragraph (2) of subdivision (c) of Section 11265.1.