House of Commons - Public Accounts

Select Committee on Public Accounts Twenty-Sixth Report

3 Actions at a local level to encourage take-up of benefits

18. There are wide geographical variations in Pension Credit take-up across England, Scotland and Wales. Controlling for other factors, take-up of Pension Credit is lower in less deprived areas, rural areas, areas with large minority ethnic populations, and areas with older pensioners. Some apparently similar rural areas, such as the Highlands and Islands of Scotland have contrasting take-up rates, however, and the Department was not able to provide explanations for these local variations.[33] The Department recognises it can do more with its data locally and it has recruited marketing experts to help link its data with data on the characteristics of particular locations, for example the neighbourhood classifications available from the information company Experian.[34]

19. One possible reason for some of these variations is that take-up is lower where entitled pensioners are less concentrated, so that people are not part of social networks or encouraged to apply by word of mouth. The Department believes it has been more successful in encouraging take-up in deprived areas because other organisations, such as voluntary groups and local authorities, are also active in these places. The Pension Service recognises that there is now a need to focus on those areas, including rural and more affluent parts of the country, where there is less other activity.[35]

20. There is a considerable amount of effort and activity happening at a local level to increase take-up of entitlements. The National Audit Office report concluded that The Pension Service Local Service provides a high quality customer service and targets the most vulnerable pensioner groups. Local authorities, the voluntary sector and other public service providers are also involved in local initiatives to increase take-up.[36] The Department is providing short-term support for 172 such initiatives though its Partnership Fund, which provides funding for community, voluntary and not-for-profit organisations to increase take-up, particularly amongst vulnerable and hard-to-reach groups.[37] But the level of local activity is not uniform (see Figure 5 below), and success rates of different activities are not analysed. For example, only a quarter of the local authorities involved in take-up activities were working to targets.[38]

21. In response to the National Audit Office's Report, the Department is looking at how to provide the Local Service with more autonomy and flexibility in order to utilise local knowledge and respond to local priorities. The Local Service does not have targets for increasing take-up because of measurement difficulties, but the Local Service Modeller (paragraph 18) is intended to provide more information to help local managers with how best to deploy their staff, and a set of measures of what each local area can achieve.[39]

22. The Pension Service does not have a network of local offices that people can visit. Instead, it has call centres, staff operating from a range of other organisations' premises, and Local Service staff offer home visits. It is working in partnership with other interested parties to encourage take-up, and has 128 joint working partnerships with primary tier local authorities. Its initial aim of setting up a joint team with a similar structure in each area was considered too prescriptive, and did not work where the local council had contracted out some of its Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit services. The Pension Service is, however, now taking a more flexible approach and is in discussion on forming a partnership with 59 other authorities. There are now only 16 areas where partnership agreement is not in sight, but the Department's aim is to put them in place throughout the country.[40]

5. Local authorities work in partnership with a range of organisations

Source: National Audit Office survey of local authorities based on responses from 250 local authorities
Note: Over a third of respondents stated 'other' as partnership work with welfare rights agencies and one fifth respondents stated 'other' as work with other local authorities. A range of partnerships were given for the remaining 'other', including social services, carers' networks, libraries and the Royal British Legion.

23. There are also 400 Alternative Offices where other local organisations provide assistance and access to pensioner benefits. Of these, over 150 were run voluntarily by Age Concern.[41] The Pension Service is exploring with HM Revenue and Customs the scope to use more tax offices as information points, with on-site Pension Service staff available to give benefit advice. Despite these efforts, the withdrawal of public service outlets such as tax offices and post offices from rural areas make it more difficult to provide accessible services.[42]

24. There are fewer formal partnerships between The Pension Service and the social housing and health sectors, although 40% of local authorities are involved in take-up work with housing associations (Figure 5). The new Local Area Agreements for local authorities will mean that The Pension Service will have a seat on every local strategic partnership board across the country which will help with future partnership working.

25. The Department of Health has a PSA target on improving the quality of life of vulnerable older people, which requires Primary Health Trusts to work in partnership with the other key local agencies such as social housing providers and local authorities as well as The Pension Service. But although increasing pensioners' income can have an impact on health, only 16% of local authorities had partnership arrangements with the primary health sector. The Pension Service has made progress in the last 12 months in working with the Department of Health. It has, however, at times proved easier to establish joint working at a local level rather than to reach national agreements.



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