3 Million Pounds of Unclaimed Benefit for Hastings Residents
HIP social media co-editor, SALLY BURR, noticed that pensioners are missing out on money that’s due to them. Read on to help yourself or someone you know.
Residents in Hastings who qualify for Pension Credit and do not claim it are missing out on an estimated three million pounds in unclaimed benefit, according to social policy software and analytics company, Policy in Practice. Pension Credit guarantees that pensioners’ incomes can be topped up at least to £201.05 a week for singles and £306.85 for couples, if their incomes fall below this level. (CAB, 2023).
Pension Credit has a value of up to £4,000 a year or £77 a week to the individual, and £144,717 in terms of annual economic impact. Rother is similarly missing out on unclaimed Pension Credit to the tune of £2,602,185. See the Policy in Practice website to check the unclaimed benefit level in your area.
Passport to help
Pension Credit is referred to as a ‘passport’ benefit. Entitlement effectively passports the claimant to free dental/optician treatment, the Cost-of-Living Payment (£900), the Warm Home Discount (£150), a free TV licence if over 74 years (£159) and access to the Disabled Facilities Grant: a grant to fund essential adaptations to your home if you have a disability. The value of unclaimed passporting benefits to Hastings residents is estimated at £28,392.
Policy in Practice calculates the gain from one county-wide awareness campaign as equal to an economic impact of over £700,000 in one year. (Policy in Practice, 2023).
Money Box
Pension Credit was the topic of Radio 4’s Money Box Live (16 September), listen to the episode, Rationing to pay debts and Bank Account Closures for free on BBC Sounds. (Pension Credit is discussed 17 minutes in.)
Financial journalist, Paul Lewis, talks to the founder of Policy in Practice’, Deven Ghelani, about the ‘lesser spotted’ Pension Credit: a benefit often unclaimed by the poorest pensioners who it is designed for.
Deven tells the story of a recent campaign born from a collaboration between Policy in Practice and London borough councils to identify 8,200 individuals in 17 boroughs eligible for, but not claiming, Pension Credit. Residents identified were contacted by letter by the local council to advise that they were eligible for Pension Credit and given advice on how to make a claim. More than 2,000 residents made a claim for Pension Credit and received an average of nearly £4,000 a year resulting in “millions of pounds being claimed by thousands of older people.” (Lewis, 2023 ).
6,200 residents identified as eligible for the benefit did not follow through to make a claim. Did some struggle to understand the information due to capacity issues such as dementia, for example? Surely no one would sniff at an increase in income? and the residents eligible for Pension Credit are not wealthy people.
Deven focuses on the positives, explaining that without the welfare data from Policy in Practice, the London boroughs would have struggled to identify the 2,000 residents who did take up Pension Credit. Many found their claims backdated to when they had first become eligible. Deven adds that many of those identified as eligible for Pension Credit were also encouraged to apply for Attendance Allowance: a non-means tested benefit that provides extra money to people if they have a long-term physical or mental condition or disability. (Age UK, 2023).
Siobhan assumes
‘Siobhan’ was one of the residents identified by her local London borough, Islington Council, as eligible for Pension Credit. She describes the additional income as a “financial relief” (Lewis, 2023 ). Siobhan, a home-owner, had incorrectly assumed that Pension Credit was automatically paid in with the State Pension. Like many, she didn’t know that she had to make a separate application for Pension Credit. This is a common misconception.
Siobhan explains: “I thought Pension Credit was automatically included in the State Pension. I didn’t realise it was two separate entities, like the State Pension is one thing and you have to apply for Pension Credit. The fact that it didn’t occur to me is because I didn’t know about it. I didn’t know I could even apply. There just isn’t enough information out there.
It’s a financial relief. You know with everything going up all of a sudden: petrol, gas, electricity, house insurance, car insurance. So to have that extra on my pension was a relief. And then one gets help with opticians and dental which is a great help because opticians and dental care are very expensive. So it’s a great help.” (Lewis, 2023).
Policy in Practice founder, Deven, says there are three reasons why people do not access Pension Credit. Firstly, many are not aware that it exists. You can’t apply for a benefit that you don’t know exists. Secondly, if you do know about Pension Credit, it can still be a challenge to apply. Deven talks about “administration complexity”: people don’t know how to claim the benefit or do not have the support around them to complete an application. Thirdly, people can feel stigmatised when applying for a benefit.
Poverty is expensive
Poverty is misery at any point of life. It is frustrating that a benefit available to aid a specific age-group is not widely taken-up.
Meet the ’Indices of Multiple Deprivation’: a score-based method of classifying areas under seven domains of income, employment, education, health, crime, barriers to housing and services, and living environment. You can score 10 out of 10 which is tops, and Lewes, Aylesbury and Cambridge score full marks. Hastings scores a 1, being ‘most deprived’ in as many as 16 postcode areas, according to the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government’s English indices of deprivation (2019).
People who live in an area of higher-than-average deprivation are more likely to be admitted to hospital and will spend longer in hospital (Luben R et al, 2019).
Not claiming Pension Credit costs everybody.
Failure of take-up is costing the state an estimated £4 billion a year in increased NHS and social care spending. If Pension Credit take-up was at 100%, then almost 450,000 people could be lifted out of poverty, reducing pensioner poverty to its lowest ever level. (Hirsch.D, Stone.J, 2020).
Sally says
I am not a benefit specialist. I have picked up knowledge from working in the community and I chanced upon Radio 4’s Money Box Live shuffling around at home recovering from Covid. Thank you for reading. I hope we are all the better off for it.
Pension Credit Helpline 0800 99 1234
Attendance Allowance Helpline 0800 731 0122
East Sussex Welfare Helpline 0333 344 0681
Department of Work & Pensions 0800 169 0190
Are you eligible?
Contact the advice lines listed below, or to speak to someone face-to-face, telephone Hastings Advice and Representative Centre on 01424 428375 to book an appointment with a benefit specialist at The Advice and Community Hub, Renaissance House, London Road, St Leonards on Sea, TN37 6AN.
If you are unable to make an application over the telephone, online or by post, and have no support from friends or family to help you, request a visit from the Department of Work & Pensions’ home-visiting benefit service. You cannot book a visit yourself. Tell DWP you need help to claim benefits by calling the number of the benefit you’re applying for. If you’re eligible, they’ll arrange a support visit (Department of Work & Pensions). For Pension Credit call 0800 99 1234 and Attendance Allowance call 0800 731 0122.
If a relative/friend or neighbour lacks capacity to make a benefit application, you can apply on their behalf if you are an ‘appointee’. To apply to act as an appointee, you need to tell the Department for Communities (via calling the benefit helpline) that someone you know needs your help to either: claim benefit because they can’t do it themselves or manage their existing benefit because they can’t do it themselves. Only one appointee can act on behalf of someone who is entitled to benefits (the claimant) from the Department for Communities (DfC). An appointee can be: an individual, for example, a friend or relative; an organisation or representative of an organisation, for example, a solicitor.
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