Invalidity pension and continuing education

periwinkle

I recently transferred from illness benefit to invalidity pension, thank god. It took more than two years as I had to appeal their initial refusal.

I have been on illness benefit for five years and for the last two years I have had an exemption to pursue an approved course of study. This is the end of the second, final year of the course but because of my illness I missed out on a lot of the course during this year and may not pass all my exams first time round.

Would anyone know if the department would allow me to repeat some of the exams while receiving invalidity pension? I may have to repeat the year as an external student.

The other question I have is regarding the payment itself. Is it backdated to the date the application was first refused, and appealed? I don't wish to sound greedy but I thought perhaps I might receive a back payment less the weekly payments I received while on illness benefit. It would be a big help.

periwinkle

pluto_322

I can see no reason why you can't apply for another exemption to do the exams. In relation to arrears, if you successfully appealed the original decision to refuse, then the Appeals Decision would normally be retrospective. What does the appeals decision actually say?

skippy2

Payment is backdated to when you initially applied...best of luck