Applying for internal vacancies while on long term sickness

I have to be reading this wrong. You retired after years on sick leave and wonder why you might not have been successful in internal competitions while you were absent? They would never have shown your sick leave as the reason for your failure.

Excluding the Public Sector, which I’m not very familiar with you can be let go if out for sick reasons (as part of a process). I imagine the PS is different, but I cannot believe they cannot take into account when promotions are available.

if you are out sick you are not available for work so definitely should be an issue if going for a promotion

Correct, nothing stopping you applying for the job. But I’d have a hard time thinking even the PS would consider you a serious candidate.

You seem to think you’d have the promotions in the bag, why?

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I know exactly what you mean. I feel exactly the same way about the National Lottery. It's very unfair that I can't win simply because I couldn't afford to buy a ticket. In fact it's definitely discrimination - it's time for me to phone Joe Duffy and complain.

Teachers may be different. It’s 6 months full pay, 6 months half pay, and I think a further period on 1/4 pay. But they need to prove serious illness.

Illness benefit deducted.

You would have been able to apply for the job but likely that you would have had the application rejected because you weren't available to work. It's not discrimination as being sick isn't a protected category. I know a few people who applied for more senior positions while on maternity leave & because the role was expected to commence after their return date (or very close to it that movement was possible), they were interviewed & some were successful.

While you're on sick leave there is a level of protection for your job without your organisation however it doesn't follow that you can apply for roles you can't fulfil and expect to be able to get them. Ultimately someone else with similar experience/qualification would always beat you to the role as they would be available. No manager is going to hire someone that may never be able to take up the position.

If you didn't apply, you'll never know. Who's to say whether you would have been considered or not, and even if you were whether you would have been successful at interview. It's a whole lot of What Ifs.

IF you had applied, and they ruled that you being on sick leave was a barrier to promotion, you might have been able to take a case, but since you never appled, there is no case to take. The sole reason you were not promoted in that you did not apply.

You said you were out sick "for quite a few years". Would you have gotten any annual salary reviews in this period ?

check out your OP. Try and keep your story consistent next time.

Reading further, companies have a defence of ‘dignity in the work place’. This can be used as a defence for not putting someone with a disability/brain damage, out sick for years on sick leave through an arduous interview process.

Also, BEFORE they could allow you back to a work setting their insurance company policy would demand you prove you can come back to work. THAT would have meant you losing out on your income Protection money… and you still might not have got a job. Since you were out on long term Income Protection the company had no obligation to hold your job.

TL/DR they did you a favour

A long time ago in the general public services there might have been actually some truth in OP’s question, which I presume to be a p1$$take in present times. I have known of more than one case of somebody getting promoted in something of these circumstances, to beef up the pension. A very long time ago the Civil Service, people were commonly promoted to a job they simply could not have done, just before retirement, in order to get the increased pension.

As you say it’s now average and not final and the OP said they were not in the CS.

I'm sorry you were ill or otherwise medically unable to work but without wishing to be uncharitable, one could wonder how one could expect you to be simultaneously too unwell to work but well enough to do an interview?

Ok you can't make a person redundant, you can only make a role redundant. And that would take a while and they would not be able to hire anyone into that role again because the role is what is made redundant. You would have possibly been let go if unable to perform your duties. And they can't predetermine that before you go back because there is a whole back to work process when someone has been off on long term medical leave. But as a private business they don't owe you a promotion while you're off and can decide that if you are unable to fulfill the role that you can be let go. You wouldn't have gotten a redundancy package.