SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1. The staff of the War Pensions Agency should
be congratulated for their professionalism and dedication (paragraph
4).
2. We expect the independent review to result
in changes to the decision making and appeals process which bring
about significant improvements in the service provided by the
Agency and we expect the Agency to take note of the concerns raised
in this Report (paragraph 6).
3. Though we acknowledge that the Agency's overall
performance is good, we are concerned that there may be a significant
number of claimants who experience unacceptable delays (paragraph
7).
4. We recommend that there should be separate
targets for old and new appeals, that these targets should be
challenging and should be improved year-on-year, and that reducing
the time taken to clear appeals should be considered a high priority
(paragraph 9).
5. It is clear to us that significant improvements
in the Agency's written communication need to be made if the Agency
is to achieve the target of delivering a first class service to
war pensioners and war widows (paragraph 10).
6. We recommend that calls to the telephone Helpline
should be charged at the local rate and that urgent consideration
should be given to the introduction of a Freephone number (paragraph
11).
7. We are concerned at the lack of public awareness
of war pensions and are surprised that increasing public awareness
is not a high priority for the Agency. We recommend that the issue
of take-up should be addressed. We recommend that, as a first
step, details of how to claim a war pension should be included
in the notification of state pension entitlement sent by the Department
to people approaching retirement age (paragraph 13).
8. It is clear to us that the current review of
the work of the War Pensions Agency should take into consideration
the high value which is placed on the work of the Welfare Service.
In addition, we recommend that the Agency should seek to draw
on the experience of the fire and police services in the continued
development of the War Pensioners' Welfare Service (paragraph
15).
9. We believe that the War Pensions Agency should
be retained as a 'stand alone' body for at least the next five
years. Moreover, we consider it to be very important that ex-service
organisations should be consulted fully in the course of the Prior
Options Review (paragraph 17).
10. We recommend that consideration should be
given to hiving off the administration of the Ilford Park Polish
Home, while continuing to place priority on providing a high level
of service to the residents of the Home and the community that
it serves (paragraph 18).
11. We consider it unfortunate that significant
expertise was lost by the War Pensions Agency in 1997-98 through
the introduction of an early retirement scheme. There are lessons
to be learned form the experience of the Agency by other parts
of the public sector about the importance of retaining experienced
staff during periods of change (paragraph 20).
12. In areas of medical controversy, consideration
might be given to the commissioning of medical evidence jointly
with the ex-service community so as to develop common ground and
avoid the divisions that we have seen in recent years (paragraph
24).
13. We consider it to be very important that the
experience of the War Pensions Agency should inform both the current
review and the consultation which follows (paragraph 25).
14. We were surprised to hear of the anachronistic
treatment of officers and other ranks. We believe that the current
review provides an opportunity to modernise the arrangements (paragraph
26).
15. We fully support the Government's aim of devising
a modern, fair and simplified compensation scheme. We welcome
the fact that the current review of compensation arrangements
will result in the publication of a consultation document and
trust that the consultation will be conducted thoroughly (paragraph
27).
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