Memorandum submitted by Lancashire County
Council (PC 08)
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Lancashire County Council Welfare Rights
Service is located within the Environment Directorate of the authority.
Established by the County Council in 1987, we are a non-statutory
service dedicated to providing the 1.13 million residents of Lancashire
with information, advice and advocacy to enable them to secure
their legal entitlements within the benefits system. Six area
teams deliver a casework service to all types of client groups,
and we also have a specialist benefit take-up team.
1.2 Improved benefit take up amongst Lancashire's
older population has always been a high priority for the Service,
and resources have over the years been specifically allocated
to achieve this, for example, via:
— targeted postal campaigns, using
data supplied by district council Housing Benefit records;
— two specialist take up teams in the
Accrington and Burnley area, funded through the Neighbourhood
Renewal Fund (NRF); and
— a special take up project, funded
as part of a Public Service Agreement (PSA) with the government
to increase the number of over 60s claiming Pension Credit and
Attendance Allowance.
1.3 In 2002, 36% of our client group were
aged 60 or over. At that stage, we only had one NRF funded project.
With the inclusion of an additional NRF funded specialist team
and the PSA project, it is anticipated that this year's customer
profile (currently being surveyed) will be significantly higher.
1.4 It is with this extensive background
in benefit issues relating to older people that we welcome the
opportunity to contribute to this inquiry into the introduction
of Pension Credit.
2. THE CONTRIBUTION
PLAYED BY
PENSION CREDIT
TO THE
INCOMES OF
CURRENT AND
FUTURE PENSIONERS
2.1 There is no doubt, in our experience,
that Pension Credit is an extremely worthwhile benefit. It has,
overall, been well received and can substantially increase the
income of pensioner households.
2.2 The two main advantages are that there
is no capital cut off and most people over 65 will be given an
"assessed income period" during which they do not have
to report changes to their retirement income or capital. This
reduces the administrative burden for both customers and Pension
Service staff, by eliminating the need for customers to report
every change in income, as well as the completion (and processing)
of annual review forms.
3. THE INTERACTION
OF PENSION
CREDIT WITH
OTHER BENEFITS
AND WITH
LOCAL AUTHORITY
CARE CHARGING
POLICIES
3.1 The main disadvantage of the new benefit
is its interaction with Housing and Council Tax Benefits. Not
having the capital rules for Housing/Council Tax Benefits aligned
with those for Pension Credit, causes confusion for claimants
and also for local authorities administering Housing/Council Tax
Benefits to the obvious detriment of their customers. This has
not been helped by the DWP's official guidance on Pension Credit
for Housing/Council Tax Benefit staff being published separately
from their standard guidance manual. We have had experience of
staff in district council benefit offices in Lancashire incorrectly
advising claimants that even though they remain entitled to the
Guarantee Credit, they are no longer entitled to Housing/Council
Tax Benefit because their capital has increased during an "assessed
income period" to over £16,000 (eg as a result of selling
a property). It is not unknown for our advisers to send these
staff copies of their own guidance on this issue.
3.2 Although there would be a cost, we would
welcome alignment of the income and capital rules for Housing
and Council Tax Benefits (as well as those for local authority
charging schemes). The current differences complicate the system,
leading to a lot of misunderstandings, and mistakes being made
by both pensioners and professionals alike. In our experience,
complex rules (which inevitably lead to complex processing procedures)
are a main reason that older people miss out on the benefits they
are entitled to.
3.3 People are also put off claiming Pension
Credit because if they miss out on the Guarantee Credit, any extra
Pension Credit paid via the Savings Credit may reduce the amount
of Housing/Council Tax Benefit they are entitled to. Those getting
just the Savings Credit can lose 85% of any extra income in increased
rent and Council Tax. If Savings Credit were disregarded as income,
there would likely be a further increase in the take up of Pension
Credit. We have one example of a customer not wanting to claim
Savings Credit, because she currently gets all her rent and Council
Tax covered by Housing/Council Tax Benefits. She would rather
miss out on this extra weekly income, rather than get involved
in having to take responsibility for paying a very small element
of her rent and Council Tax direct to the landlord/local authority.
"It's not worth the hassle" she says.
3.4 Another administrative burden results
from the interaction of Pension Credit with Severe Disablement
Allowance (SDA). Because SDA is not treated as a "qualifying
income" for Savings Credit purposes, a significant number
of pensioners (particularly women) have to change from SDA to
Retirement Pension when they reach 60. This is purely a paper
exercise, which in our experience takes weeks to resolve, leaving
claimants without an important benefit income in the interim—as
well as having no overall increase in their weekly income when
it is finally resolved. If SDA were included as a "qualifying
income", there would be no need for Jobcentre Plus and Pension
Service staff to go through this process.
3.5 A significant number of pensioners are
also likely to be missing out on the Carers Addition of their
Pension Credit (worth £25.55 a week) because of the roundabout
way of establishing entitlement. Firstly, the pensioner has to
make a claim for Carers Allowance, a benefit that, due to overlapping
benefit rules, most will not get. They then have to wait to receive
a decision letter from the Carers Allowance Unit that tells them,
confusingly, that they will not be paid Carers Allowance. They
are then obliged to inform Pension Credit of the decision on their
Carers Allowance claim in order to finally get the Carers Addition
included as part of their Pension Credit entitlement. Apart from
the waste of resources involved in paying staff to adjudicate
and process claims (for Carers Allowance) for a benefit that most
applicants are not going to get, the whole process is confusing
and off putting for carers to follow. Pension Service staff themselves
do not understand this. For example, the last two monthly Pension
Credit updates sent by the Pension Service to MPs have included
case studies where the Carers Addition has been missed off the
Pension Credit case studies.
3.6 There is also a lack of effective co-ordination
between the Pension Service and other DWP offices (eg Attendance
Allowance and Carers Allowance Units). We have, for example, been
told on a number of occasions by Pension Service staff that written
confirmation of Carers Allowance entitlement is needed—even
when this information is available on their ICT system.
4. TAKE-UP
OF PENSION
CREDIT (AND
OTHER BENEFITS)
4.1 There are many pensioners, perhaps even
a majority, who can manage their affairs over the `phone, and
as a result have made successful claims for benefit using the
Pension Credit Application Line. However, there are a significant
group of pensioners (likely to be in the hard to reach group)
who cannot manage the claim process by `phone.
4.2 Extensive experience of benefit take
up with older people has shown us that one of the crucial factors
in encouraging this hard to reach client group to engage with
us is the offer of a "personal service"—ie one
based on personal face-to-face contact, or the allocation of a
named caseworker, rather than dependence on a "scripted"
telephone or postal based service. Claimants, whatever their age,
need to have access to caseworkers that are experienced and knowledgeable
enough to address their "whole benefit" situation—eg
to be able to identify all the benefits that a household is potentially
entitled to, and to be able to offer support and advice to guide
them through the claim process. This is particularly important
for our older customers who respond better to having just one
adviser dealing with their case (ie one individual taking responsibility
for all follow up work), rather than speaking to a different person
every time they ring the office, as currently happens when claimants
contact the Pension Service. It also helps if customers are able
to deal with same person about more than one benefit. However,
Pension Service do not provide this kind of service. Indeed, we
have numerous cases of errors and misinformation on the one benefit
they are responsible for. The lack of understanding on how important
benefits like Attendance Allowance and Carers Allowance (and their
claim processes) impact on Pension Credit is worrying—and
is an obvious training issue. Staff who can think "outside
the script", or who know what the "script" means,
would help. This will hopefully come with time, but obviously
does not help current claimants.
4.3.1 All frontline services are judged
on the way they treat their customers, and the skills and experience
of frontline staff are in our experience crucial to this. To improve
their service, the Pension Service needs to improve the skills
and knowledge of their frontline staff. We have been told informally
that Pensions Service management consciously avoided employing
staff from other parts of DWP with benefits background because
they wanted to create a new organisation with a new "culture"
untainted by DWP background. The consequence of this for our customers
is that they are being dealt with by staff who are inexperienced
and lack the level of benefits knowledge required.
4.3.2 In our experience, the reputation
of Pension Credit will be influenced by word of mouth recommendation.
The Pension Credit claiming process has deterred some of our customers
from following up their own claims—we doubt if they will
be recommending the current service to their friends and neighbours.
4.4 Like a number of other local authority
Welfare Rights Services, we have extensive experience of benefit
take up, experience which would benefit all parties involved in
such initiatives, including the Pension Service. One of the biggest
barriers to progressing our PSA project work has been the difficulty
in setting up effective liaison arrangements and gaining co-operation
from Pension Service staff when we enquire on behalf of our customers.
All the goodwill and contacts that our Service has built up over
many years with local DSS/DWP offices have been lost. Contacts
at the Pension Centres change on a regular basis, and action points
from the liaison meetings that do take place are not always followed.
5. THE CONSEQUENCES
OF THE
DEPARTMENT'S
PLANS TO
REDUCE ITS
WORKFORCE AND
THE NUMBER
OF PENSIONS
CENTRES
5.1 In our experience, the Pension Centres
cannot cope with their current workload. Rather than reducing
the number of Pension Centre staff, their re-deployment to processing
"problem/more complex" cases would, in our opinion,
be of more benefit—even if this were on a short-term basis
to allow staff to develop holistic benefit skills, knowledge and
experience. The Pension Service might then be able to better manage
the examples of poor administrative practice described elsewhere
in this submission.
5.2 Resources may also be better deployed
to increase local service provision. This would enable the Pension
Service to be more proactive regarding benefit take up, allowing
them to offer a genuine "one stop shop" facility for
older customers, including the completion of Attendance Allowance
forms etc.
5.3 At a recent liaison meeting with our
local Pension Centres, we were advised that an estimated 4,000
cheque payments (paid under the Direct Payments "exceptions
service") are expected to go missing each week. Liaison meetings
with our Jobcentre Plus offices provide us with evidence that
their offices are not the place for pensioners to go if there
are problems with benefit payments. One of our customers recently
had her Income Support stopped when she reached 60. She had not
been advised of this (nor the fact that she would now have to
claim Pension Credit). However, the response of her local Jobcentre
Plus office was to refer her to the Pension Credit Helpline. No
advice was offered on what she should live on while her claim
to Pension Credit was being processed. If there had been a local
Pension Service presence, there would at least have been someone
for her to liaise with about prioritising her claim, or facilitating
some Crisis Loan provision with the Jobcentre Plus office. Where
are the expected 4,000 people (many of whom are likely to be older
people, and in poor health or otherwise vulnerable) to go each
week when their benefit cheque payments fail to arrive?
5.4 Other concerns regarding the reduction
in Pension Service staff relate to services for the recently bereaved.
Bereavement visits to widows/widowers were previously arranged
by local office staff. This has not been the case since the introduction
of Pension Credit. In our experience, the most vulnerable are
being left without money. Widows continue to face delays following
their husband's death before Retirement Pension and Pension Credit
are awarded, even when it is obvious that there is underlying
entitlement to Pension Credit.
6. THE DELIVERY
OF A
TELEPHONE-BASED
SERVICE TO
PENSIONERS
6.1 As previously stated, frontline services
(public or private) are judged on the way they treat their customers,
and first impressions of the organisation are crucial to this.
The DWP's dependence on call/contact centres operated by staff
who are inexperienced and lacking technical knowledge has, in
our view, led to a diminished level of service. The Pension Service
is not alone in this but, given its customer base, the provision
of some sort of "personal" service (eg an enhanced local
service) should remain a crucial element of its support services.
6.2 There are many people, pensioners included,
that can manage their affairs over the phone. However, there are
also many people (likely to be the harder to reach group) who
cannot. The current emphasis on a purely telephone service excludes
many pensioners from claiming, eg those without access to a phone;
people who are deaf or hearing impaired; people not confident
with using the phone; and people whose first language is not English.
In our experience, many older people have no easy way of initiating
a claim for benefit.
6.3 Even people who are confident in using
the telephone (including our advisers) have been experiencing
difficulties using the Pension Centres phone systems to help progress/query
benefit claims:
— No one taking personal responsibility
for following up on a query, or ensuring that callers are referred
to correct extensions etc.
— The lack of a case centred approach
to decision making. People (including our advisers) get different
advice/information/action from different staff, depending on whom
they are speaking to at any one moment in time. It is not unknown
for some of our advisers to make a follow-up phone call to the
Pension Centre with the same query the same day, hoping that a
more experienced member of staff will take the call, if they are
not satisfied with the initial advice/information they have been
given.
— The lack of response to letters,
particularly from advisers writing on behalf of claimants. There
are many situations when it is appropriate to use the phone to
report issues/follow up claims. There are also many occasions
when it is not: eg when Helpline staff are giving incorrect information;
when time does not allow a customer or adviser to stay on the
phone to speak to someone who is experienced enough to handle
a query; when a complex history is involved; or when an appeal
needs to be registered. It is on these occasions we have to write
letters (and this no doubt also applies to our customers). However,
these letters are rarely replied to—other than by a non-relevant
"standard" letter. Acknowledgements (either verbal or
written) are also rarely received.
— Incorrect information and poor quality
advice from Helpline staff. We have also have cases where Pension
Credit Application Line (PCAL) staff have incorrectly entered
wrong information on claim forms—things that have not always
been spotted by the claimant when the form has been returned to
them to sign.
— There are still instances of delays
in getting through on the phone, plus long waits.
— The issue of data protection is frequently
raised by Pension Service staff who are unwilling to share information
with advisers who enquire on behalf of their customers. Even when
dealing with a bone fide organisation such as Lancashire County
Council, Pension Service staff feel unable to discuss case details.
This prevents joint working taking place and puts a restrictive
definition of data protection above moving pensioners out of poverty.
In our view, this is a fundamentally flawed set of priorities.
7. THE DEVELOPMENT
OF EFFECTIVE
LOCALLY BASED
SERVICES
7.1 On the whole, local service provision
in Lancashire is useful for verification purposes in cases where
the claimant does not want, or cannot send documents by post (see
below).
7.2 However, local service provision is
very variable eg some agents fill in Attendance Allowance/Carers
Allowance forms; some do not.
8. THE EXPERIENCE
OF CLAIMING
PENSION CREDIT
8.1 In our experience, and that of a majority
of our customers, the experience of claiming Pension Credit is
far worse/more difficult than it was to claim the Minimum Income
Guarantee (MIG).
8.2 A high proportion of Pension Credit
claims need chasing up and checking to ensure that the customer
receives their correct entitlement. Our advisers usually have
to make several phone calls on each case. This would rarely be
necessary with MIG.
8.3 The following are just a few examples
of the problems encountered by our advisers and customers:
— Mistakes in payments, and claims
wrongly disallowed. We have many cases where the Carer and Severe
Disability Additions have been overlooked. Plus cases where the
Pension Service know they have got something wrong (eg incorrectly
not awarding the Carer Addition, which was brought to their attention
by our adviser) and months later this is still not corrected.
— Advisers having to send Pension Service
staff/decision-makers copies of their own guidance.
— Even when the Carer Addition has
been correctly awarded, we have had cases where the Addition has
continued to be paid beyond the eight-week period following the
death of the person being cared for. This should be automatically
adjusted.
— Remote scanning of paperwork has
led to many instances of lost documents, "unlinked"
documents, repeated requests for the same information, delays
in the processing of the information submitted. In one case, the
lost papers included originals of share certificates. Some of
the customer's papers were eventually found, but not the share
certificates. The customer has had to write to the Bank of England
to get duplicates. All this contributes to claimants being reluctant
to send in important documents (eg bank books) by post.
— Photocopies of bank statements not
being accepted.
— Verification of superannuation also
required. Claimants often do not have this. With MIG, the DWP
accepted bank statement showing payments made by the pension provider.
— MIG claims were normally processed
within one or two weeks, Pension Credit claims are taking months.
— Changes of circumstances taking months
to process. People returning their order books for adjustment,
because of these changes, and then being left without money for
weeks on end. We have cases where our advisers have reported changes
of circumstances to the Pension Service on behalf of claimants,
and then had to follow up on two to three further occasions before
any adjustments are made.
— Letters to customers do not always
relate to recent changes of circumstances. Computer generated
letters are sent out and often do not make sense.
— Jobcentre Plus offices not issuing
Income Support stop notices to customers as they reach 60 and
need to swap claims to Pension Credit. One customer only found
out that her Income Support had stopped when she went to cash
her money. Her Income Support was being paid with her SDA, so
both payments ceased. Staff at her local Jobcentre Plus office
were not at all helpful and referred her to PCAL to make a claim
for Pension Credit.
— The knock on effect to other benefits
(primarily Housing/Council Tax Benefit) if the Pension Service
get it wrong—ie incorrectly stopping someone's Pension Credit,
which has a knock on effect on their Housing Benefit etc (particularly
if they are on the Guarantee Credit), and then not notifying the
local authority when benefit is re-instated.
— Pension Credit claims where entitlement
to benefit is dependant on housing costs being included. Our advisers
have been told by local Pension Centre staff that the claim is
assessed by one section on "standard" Pension Credit
amounts (ie excluding housing costs) and if there is nil entitlement
it is forwarded to the "housing costs" section. However,
a standard decision letter is being issued to the customer at
this stage to say they have no entitlement to Pension Credit.
The letter gives no indication that this is only an "interim"
decision pending an assessment of housing costs. Apparently a
nil decision needs to be issued at this stage "to clear it
from the section". In one case the customer was missing out
on £13 a week. Pension Credit. Her case took weeks to resolve,
because her file needed to be reconstructed and manual payments
organised.
— Housing costs are often not included
in the assessment of Pension Credit claims, leading to people
being incorrectly refused. We regularly come across customers
who have Home Improvement Loans that were taken out 20 years ago.
Surprisingly, customers do not have receipts. This often takes
months to be resolved, if it is paid if at all.
9. THE EXPERIENCE
OF DIRECT
PAYMENTS
9.1 Most of our very elderly and most vulnerable
customers are extremely upset at no longer being able to have
an order book. Again, the following are examples of the issues
and experiences raised by our customers and advisers:
— Some customers report being, in their
words, "blackmailed" or "bullied" into using
a bank or building society account (or opening a Post Office card
account) for payment of benefit even although they do not want
to. These customers say they are not being advised of the exceptions
service, and are worried they will be left without money if they
do not give their account details or open an account. We have
even had cases where Pension Service staff have not known about
the exceptions service and are unable to advise customers what
to do to access it.
— Customers having to use a taxi to
get to their bank to get money each week instead of being able
to walk across the road to the Post Office. One customer said:
"It isn't just the money although
I really can't afford it. I miss the company of going into the
Post Office and chatting to the postmistress and neighbours, who
go at the same time. I never see anyone now".
— One customer broke down in tears
at the Post Office when she could not remember her PIN number,
and had a queue of people grumbling behind her. She was so upset
she came out without any money and swore she would not go back.
— Another customer forgot the telephone
number she was given to ring to activate her Post Office account,
and had to wait until someone could take her back to the Post
Office the following week to get it again.
— Instances of payments going into
accounts and customers not knowing what they are, what benefit
or what period they cover.
— Problems getting payment of pension
via a Post Office card account. It has taken nearly eight weeks
for a customer in the Carnforth area to get his account sorted
although he followed the instructions from the Post Office to
the letter.
— We are also concerned that there
has been a recent increase in the number of ATMs that charge for
withdrawal of money.
8.2 It is now extremely difficult for advisers
to do benefit checks, as customers more often have no idea what
benefits they are getting (nor how much is being paid) when they
transfer to a bank account etc. It is difficult, in some cases,
to ascertain if Pension Credit, Attendance Allowance etc is in
payment, thus increasing the risk of customers putting in duplicate
claims. With MIG, advisers could normally tell from the assessment
what benefits people were on. It is not possible to do this with
Pension Credit.
10. CONCLUSION
10.1 We are of the view that Pension Credit
is an extremely worthwhile benefit—substantially increasing
the income of pensioner households, but we have concerns regarding
it's administration.
10.2 In November 2003, we prepared an in-house
report of our main concerns at that time. These were:
— failure to award the Severe Disability
and Carer Additions;
— the quality of electronically completed
claim forms;
— the quality of advice/service provided
to customers; and
— difficulties in getting Pension service
to work jointly on cases, eg the application of data protection.
In our experience, little progress has been
made in these areas.
Lancashire County Council
1 October 2004
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