Assessing claim for Pensioner Education Supplement (PES) 010-05040020

PES is paid in addition to the primary 'qualifying' payment to help with the ongoing costs associated with study.

To qualify for PES a student must meet all of the following:

• be receiving a qualifying payment for PES
• satisfy the residence requirements for PES
• be of PES age (there is no maximum age limit for PES)
• be undertaking or intending to undertake an approved course of study at an approved institution
• have not completed a Masters or Doctorate degree or qualification

Note: extra criteria must be considered when deciding if a customer is eligible to receive PES for a 25% concessional study load.

For PES claims, if the customer is receiving a:

• qualifying payment for PES, identity documentation is only required if Identity Confirmation was not met when the customer claimed their primary income support payment
• Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) payment, identification documentation is required if they have not confirmed their identity with Services Australia

PES processing has been consolidated into Smart Centre Processing centres nationally. See Office Locator > Student Network - National PES / AIC > Office Messages > Office Notes.

Many rejection reasons automatically occur after details have been coded into the system. However some rejection reasons have to be coded manually, for example, failing to supply documents, failing to reply to correspondence.

Where a customer's PES qualifying pension or payment from

• Services Australia is not current, their claim for PES is automatically rejected
• Department of Veterans' Affairs is not current, their PES claim is manually rejected

When manually rejecting a claim, notify the customer in writing with the rejection reason(s) and include their rights of review and appeal.

When making an unfavourable decision, speak to the customer:

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

Make one genuine attempt to contact the customer by phone before finalising the decision.