Restoration of Double Orphan Pension (DOP) 007-06020030

DOP can be restored when a customer's qualification has been re-established after a cancellation. This can happen:

• as a result of changes in the customer's circumstances
• because of a review of a Services Australia decision
• after specified events that have temporarily made them ineligible for payment, or
• the customer has provided more information about their circumstances

When restoring a customer's DOP payment, check eligibility for the entire period of the cancellation. If there have been changes in the customer's circumstances, an update of the relevant information on the system needs to be done before restoring the payment, to avoid incorrect arrears being generated.

If the period of cancellation has been greater than 13 weeks, DOP cannot be restored. The customer will need to lodge a new claim.

Restorations of DOP are processed by DOP Smart Centre Processing.

If the customer continued to meet qualification and payability conditions for DOP during the period of cancellation, their payment may be restored with full arrears.

This may apply when the customer contacts more than 13 weeks after the decision to cancel. This is because the customer would be taken not to have received advice of the decision to cancel if:

• they were not at their known address and/or
• advice of the decision was returned to Services Australia

This means that the date of effect of the favourable determination (restoration) resulting from review of the decision to cancel, is the date of the original decision (date of cancellation), as per the Legislation. See the References page for more information.

Each customer's circumstances must be looked at individually to determine whether they could be taken not to have received advice of the decision to cancel, and whether they retained qualification and payability during the period, and therefore receive arrears upon restoration.