The method and arrangement according to the present invention relates to scheduling and coding in communication systems utilizing automatic repeat request (ARQ) and/or multihop scheduling and forwarding. According to the inventive method the receiving nodes selectively stores received information, also overheard information, as a priori information and feed back information about their respective stored a priori information to a sending node. The sending node forms composite data packets by jointly encoding and scheduling multiple multicast data packets, and subsequently transmits the composite data packets to the receiving nodes. Upon receiving a composite data packet the receiving nodes uses their stored a priori information, comprising of regular multicast packets, or full or partly decoded composite packets comprised of regular multicast packets, in the process of extracting multicast data packets from the composite data packets.