£300 top up for winter fuel allowance.

MikeJXE

Today I received the winter fuel payments into my bank account so It will be happening for everyone eligible 

so_very_confused

That's excellent news!

luvchocolate

Martin Lewis last night said payment was from 22nd of November 

SJMALBA

My mother received her WFP today.

desthemoaner

so_very_confused said:

slowcars said:

poppy12345 said:

slowcars said:

In my opinion it is reasonable that the £500 Winter Fuel Allowance should be paid when the gas and electric bills are due for payment.

How would that be possible?

Up until recently it has not been that cold. We are all expecting that the larger monthly bills to land on our doorstep will arrive sometime in December onwards. As the allowance is for winter fuel usage it makes complete sense that people get it when the higher bills arrive. I don't understand why people want it earlier.

It is for fuel but also general cost of living was my understanding.

Precisely. Energy costs are just one aspect of the cost of living, which is an "in the round" consideration.

Murphybear

so_very_confused said:

Last year I was paid on the 11/11. I tend to agree the government are delaying payment. I don't think they realise how needed this is. It is to help with the cost of living as well as energy. Some pensioners have been struggling for sometime. As for the difficulty of paying this, someone only has to hit a switch hey presto. We are all on computer!

Many pensioners are not on computer!  I live in sheltered housing, there are 33 over 60s.  12 have a computer, the rest don’t 

I have never had my payment until the 2nd week of December

p00hsticks

so_very_confused said:

As for the difficulty of paying this, someone only has to hit a switch hey presto. We are all on computer!

Trust me, someone does not 'only have to hit a switch' - it;s a lot more complicated than that.

There is a limit to the number of payments there is time to process each night, and top priority has to go to the normal benefit payments - UC, ESA, DLa, PIP, State Pension, Pension Credit etc. In general benefit payments can only be made overnight as the computer systems need to be available to the call centre personnel and other staff during the day.

In addition to the normal day-to-day payments and the regualr 'one-off' Winter Fuel Allowance and Xmas bonus, this year there are a whole host of other COL payments that need to be made by DWP. First of all they will have to work out who is entitled to each of the payments. The winter fuel one is quite tricky because it is paid by household and varies by age - it's not always immediately obviously to DWP how many people over state pension age are living in a household and which, if either of them, are over 80. Once they have the pool of people who are eligible and have worked out exactly how much each is entitled to depending on where they live, who they live with and how old they are, then they'll gradually start making payments each night as and when they have spare capacity to do so. 

sammyjammy

Murphybear said:

so_very_confused said:

Last year I was paid on the 11/11. I tend to agree the government are delaying payment. I don't think they realise how needed this is. It is to help with the cost of living as well as energy. Some pensioners have been struggling for sometime. As for the difficulty of paying this, someone only has to hit a switch hey presto. We are all on computer!

Many pensioners are not on computer!  I live in sheltered housing, there are 33 over 60s.  12 have a computer, the rest don’t 

I have never had my payment until the 2nd week of December

I believe the comment was related to all customers being on DWPs system.

GaleSF63

so_very_confused said:

Last year I was paid on the 11/11. I tend to agree the government are delaying payment. I don't think they realise how needed this is. It is to help with the cost of living as well as energy. Some pensioners have been struggling for sometime. As for the difficulty of paying this, someone only has to hit a switch hey presto. We are all on computer!

I think they do or they wouldn't be paying it at all.

poppy12345

GaleSF63 said:

so_very_confused said:

Last year I was paid on the 11/11. I tend to agree the government are delaying payment. I don't think they realise how needed this is. It is to help with the cost of living as well as energy. Some pensioners have been struggling for sometime. As for the difficulty of paying this, someone only has to hit a switch hey presto. We are all on computer!

I think they do or they wouldn't be paying it at all.

Exactly. It was the same with all the other CoL payments, if people didn't receive it within a couple of days of the start of the payment period they would start threads asking why they hadn't received it. It's not as simple as "pushing" a button and everyone will receive the payment.