How easy is it to 'pick it up'?

Siobhán Harding of Citizens Advice and Kevin Higgins, adviceni, examine the impact of Pension Credit since its introduction in October 2003.

Evidence report Citizens Advice has produced an evidence report entitled It’s Yours... but how easy is it to Pick it Up? following the receipt of a large volume of social policy evidence highlighting problems with the administration of Pension Credit. The report details the main problems experienced by clients and advisers and also makes a number of recommendations to the Pension Service.

Pension Credit was introduced in October 2003 with the stated aim of trying to reduce pensioner poverty, boosting the incentive for future pensioners to save for retirement and increasing take up by making claiming easier. However the evidence suggests that far from achieving the aims stated by government, the introduction of Pension Credit has meant delays, confusion and financial hardship for many pensioners in Northern Ireland.

A client of Lisburn CAB was told by the Pension Service over the telephone that he was not entitled to Pension Credit and so no application form was sent out to him. The client approached the bureau who checked the client’s whole benefit situation and discovered he was indeed entitled to Pension Credit once he had a Carer’s Premium added based on his wife’s underlying entitlement to Carer’s Allowance. This possibility was not considered by the Pension Service as they did not look at the client’s entire benefit situation and therefore the client was discouraged from claiming.

• range of problems have been identified by advisers:
• telephone contact has proved unsuitable for some claimants;
• problems getting through to the Pension Service and having telephone calls returned;
• poor training of Pension Service staff across the benefits system leading to misinformation and incorrect advice - in some cases staff were unfamiliar with other benefits;
• lost information and claim forms;
• widespread delays in assessing claims, opening post and in the receipt of correspondence from the Pension Service.

More recent social policy evidence from bureaux indicates that many of the problems outlined in the report continue to exist and should be addressed urgently. It is discouraging to note that the problems highlighted by this report – inadequately trained staff, loss of papers and post and incorrect decisions – mirror those highlighted by CAB’s 1999 report Accessing Social Security.
Many claimants reported being confused regarding entitlement to Pension Credit, with the application procedure and with the documentation received from the Pension Service. Many have also reported financial hardship due to the delays in receiving their Pension Credit entitlement.

Ards CAB contacted the Pension Service on behalf of a client to see how long she would have to wait for her claim to be processed. The adviser was informed that claims are taking over fourteen weeks to process. The client is very upset about this as she is living on just £41 per week and has been doing so for a number of weeks.

Citizens Advice Northern Ireland has made a number of recommendations to the Pension Service:

• training for Pension Service staff across the benefits system and in relation to the Pension Credit calculation;
• increased resources to recruit staff to reduce delays and cope with demand;
• more adequate structures for the storing and retrieving of information and documentation received from claimants;
• a more developed partnership approach with advice agencies who have experience of targeted benefit take-up campaigns particularly with elderly claimants;
• a reconsideration of the emphasis on telephone contact for Pension Credit.

For various reasons, benefit take-up by older people is well below that of other groups. A research report from Citizens Advice in England and Wales on benefit take-up among older people noted that elderly people under-claim for benefits more than any other social group (CAB campaigns for benefit take-up among older people, Research Report, December 2002). Barriers to claiming can include lack of transparency about entitlement criteria, complexity of claim forms, problems of transport to and from the benefit office, the need to reveal financial details, terminology, perceived lack of privacy and age and perceived attitude of benefit staff (Older people and Income Support; barriers and triggers to take-up, DSS Social Research Branch, 1999).

The number of pensioners in Northern Ireland is expected to increase to 20% of the population by 2021. Combined with Northern Ireland’s comparatively high levels of poverty this underlines the very real need for this section of the population to have every opportunity, and all the help necessary, to claim the social security benefits to which they may be entitled.

Advice workers e-consultation

This evidence report from Citizens Advice follows on from an online consultation exercise facilitated by adviceni in December 2003. The e-consultation was entitled Pension Credit – The First 60 Days and was aimed at advice workers in order to gather their experiences of the initial impact of Pension Credit on their work and their clients.

Emerging themes from this exercise included:

• administrative and staffing issues for the Pension Service;
• access to the Pension Service;
• Pension Credit and other social security benefits;
• impact on the workload of advisers;
• positive experiences in dealing with the Pension Service.

The report concluded: ‘While in the course of this e-consultation participants have commented that there are problems in relation to the Pension Credit, these are still early days and there have been encouraging signs according to some participants that the Pension Service is serious about providing an excellent service to claimants.’

Partnership for pensioners

In a further development, the Partnerships for Pensioners group has begun the first in a series of regular meetings with a view to monitoring the Pension Credit situation. This group is made up of members of the Pension Service (Brian Doherty, Bernie Broderick and Paddy Rooney) and the Advice Services Alliance (Caryl Williamson, Lucy Cochrane, Elizabeth Brisbane, Siobhán Harding, Arfawn Yasin and Kevin Higgins).

The group has held its first meeting in the Pension Service headquarters at Carlisle House where Brian Doherty gave a presentation on the Recovery Plan being put in place in order to address the problems being experienced. Future meetings will monitor the effectiveness of this Recovery Plan and information will be circulated to advice agencies following each meeting.