Suspension of Age Pension 065-03080020

A customer may not be temporarily entitled to Age Pension because of changes in their circumstances or pending investigation by Centrelink into their eligibility for payment. In these cases, Services Australia can suspend their payment. Suspension does not necessarily indicate a loss of qualification, and Services Australia may issue full arrears if payment is restored.

A decision to suspend Age Pension can have a great impact on a customer and must be made in line with legislation and relevant process. Suspending a customer's payment by not following the correct process may cause financial hardship and distress.

Before manually suspending a customer's payment, Services Australia must issue the customer with a letter that contains the following:

• details as to the information or action required
• time frame for response (noting that this must be reasonable)
• consequences of non-compliance, and
• the relevant legislative reference under which the request has been made

When making an unfavourable decision, Services Australia must discuss the reasons with the customer.

The reasons for the suspension of Age Pension include:

• a financial institution returned a direct credit payment
• the customer failed to reply to correspondence
• the customer failed to attend an interview
• the customer's mail has been returned to Centrelink - 'whereabouts unknown'
• the customer (or their partner) has employment income which precludes payment of Age Pension

Note: take care when a customer has a current Residential Care Assessments (RCA) record. They may be in an aged care home and not able to notify of their change of address or circumstances. See Step 3 in Table 2 on the Process page.

When employment income is coded, the system automatically calculates the rate and allows the payment to remain current during this period.

If an Age Pension customer's rate reduces to nil due to employment income and the customer asks about eligibility for other payments, do not suspend customer’s payment. Offer the choice of:

• cancellation, or
• an employment income nil rate period/extended employment suspension period

See also Commencing or returning to work for Age Pension.

Age Pension customers who also get loan payments under the Home Equity Access Scheme (HEAS) are eligible to continue receiving their loan payments if Age Pension suspends for certain reasons. In these circumstances, the Age Pension status is set to Current Zero Rate (CZR) for reason 'PLS' to let the loan payments to continue being paid. During periods of CZR-PLS, the customer is not eligible to get any other rate components until Services Australia lifts the Age Pension suspension.

For more information, see Home Equity Access Scheme (HEAS) cancellation and rejections.

Before Services Australia suspends a payment, the agency must request information from the customer. This request must be under the appropriate section of the Social Security (Administration) Act; section 63, 67, 68, or part 5, division 1. The decision maker must be satisfied that there is sufficient evidence that the customer is either:

• temporarily not qualified for the payment, or
• the payment is not payable

See also Requesting information (CLK).

Nominee arrangements

If the customer has a correspondence nominee, Service Officers must attempt to contact the nominee before the payment is suspended.

Notice of suspension

Services Australia must advise customers of the decision to suspend their payment. If the system does not issue an automatic letter, Service Officers must send a manual letter. This needs to include:

• the reason for the suspension
• date of effect
• the information or documentation required to restore the payments
• reference to the relevant act, and
• the customer's review and appeal rights

When the payment is suspended, additional appropriate actions are also required. For example, issue letter, code manual review, DOC the decision, etc. See Process page for coding instructions.

Unfavourable decisions

When making an unfavourable decision, speak to the customer:

• explain the decision
• give them a chance to provide more information, and
• advise their review and appeal rights

When a customer contacts about a suspended payment:

• explain the reason for suspension
• give details about the required documentation, or tell the customer what is required so that Services Australia can restore the payment