2 Actions at a national level to encourage
take-up of benefits
11. Following its creation in 2002, The Pension Service's
main priority was to manage the introduction of Pension Credit.
Its marketing campaign was more cost-effective than previous campaigns,
achieving an annual increase in take-up of £55 per £1
spent on advertising, compared with £29 for the previous
Minimum Income Guarantee.[20]
Some people do not appear to be influenced by national campaigns,
however, and instead they need to be contacted directly. After
this initial phase, The Pension Service has moved away from wholesale
media advertising to an individualised approach with changing
messages. It identifies potential customers to approach by data
matching using the information it and other parts of government
hold on customers. It is also trying to use this information and
the contacts it has with customers to pinpoint the factors which
influence take-up.[21]
Nevertheless, The Pension Service has to work hard even to maintain
the current level of benefit take-up. Every year there are newly
retired and newly entitled pensioners who need to make claims,
and many will not have had previous contact with the benefits
system.[22]
12. The Pension Service provides pensioners with
a full benefit check covering Attendance Allowance, Housing and
Council Tax Benefits and social services, as well as Pension Credit.
In the last 18 months, the Department has focused on ensuring
Pension Credit recipients do not miss out on entitlements to Housing
Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. Working with local authorities,
The Pension Service contacted 390,000 people, which led to 59,000
additional successful claims for Council Tax Benefit. This increase
has not yet fed through into the take-up rate but it equates to
an increase of about 2%.[23]
However, with 2.5 million pensioners receiving Council Tax Benefit
and at least 1.6 million more not claiming, many of those missing
out must be people who do not receive Pension Credit.[24]
13. Our 36th Report of 2005-06 recommended further
action to tackle the complexity of the benefits system, which
is a factor in low take-up.[25]
The Department has made some progress in simplifying claim processes
and it is also trying to limit the impact of complexity on the
customer by ending the need for people to deal with multiple agencies.
The Pension Service can now take claims for the State Pension,
Pension Credit, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit in one
phone call. From 2007, Local Service staff will also take disability
benefit claims, including from people below pension age. The Housing
Benefit and Council Tax Benefit application form has been shortened
from 40 to three pages. A further development from early 2007
is to use a question on the Pension Credit application form to
identify potential eligibility for Carer's Allowance.[26]
14. There is still some duplication of processes,
however, which can be off-putting for potential claimants. From
2008, the Department plans to remove the requirement for customers
to sign a separate completed claim form for Housing Benefit after
applying by telephone. Customers still receive separate notifications
of different entitlements, which the Department acknowledged it
needs to tackle in future.[27]
The National Audit Office also identified significant complexities
remaining in the application process for Attendance Allowance,
in the link between Carer's Allowance and Pension Credit, and
in the differing treatment of capital limits across benefits.[28]
15. Another issue we referred to in our 36th Report
of 2005-06 was that sources of assistance about entitlements
were not widely known. This also applies to The Pension Service,
as there is low awareness of the availability of the Local Service.
Although it had not previously sought to advertise the Local Service,
The Pension Service is now running an advertising campaign in
local newspapers to raise awareness of its role.[29]
16. The few international examples of benefits with
high take-up rates involve close links with tax systems—the
Guaranteed Income Supplement in Canada and tax credits in the
United States. The Department does not have sufficient knowledge
of individual circumstances to award entitlements automatically
through the tax system, but it is working more closely than before
with HM Revenue and Customs on sharing data and on service provision.[30]
17. The Pension Service was allocated £73.5
million in 2006-07 to spend on the Local Service, whilst the Department
was allocated £12 million over 2004-05 and 2005-06 for Partnership
Fund projects to encourage take-up.[31]
The Pension Service recognises that it does not have good information
to compare the cost-effectiveness of different ways of contacting
pensioners despite its Pension Credit advertising having more
success than previous campaigns. It has introduced a system—the
Local Service Modeller—to be made available to all local
managers from April 2007 to capture the outcomes of each contact
it has and the resources required deal with them. This system
should allow a better assessment of the relative cost-effectiveness
of different interventions. [32]
20 C&AG's Report, paras 3.1-3.2 Back
21
Qq 59-61, 81 Back
22
Q 3 Back
23
Qq 11, 23-24, 60 Back
24
C&AG's Report, para 2.12; Figure 11 Back
25
Committee of Public Accounts, Thirty-sixth Report of Session 2005-06,
Tackling the complexity of the benefits system, HC 765 Back
26
Qq 36, 57-59 Back
27
Qq 28, 63 Back
28
C&AG's Report, para 5.6 Back
29
Committee of Public Accounts, Thirty-sixth Report of Session 2005-06,
Tackling the complexity of the benefits system, HC 765;
C&AG's Report, para 3.13; Qq 53-54 Back
30
C&AG's Report, Technical Report, Chapter 7; Qq 34-35, 75,
89-90 Back
31
Qq 100-101; Ev 16 Back
32
Qq 104-105, 107; Ev 16 Back
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