(Armed Forces) War Pension ALSO

SteakBakeCake

Hi

Does anyone know if Allowance for Lowered Standard of Occupation is still paid when a War Pensioner reaches the age of 65 and beyond or does it stop at 65 when Age Allowance is paid?

Logic says it stops but I have a feeling it may not because WPs are not always logical with all the changes over the years to legislation

Thanks in advance for any help

huckster

Link for you to use just in case you don't get a response with an answer.

https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/veterans-welfare-service

Gandalf644

SteakBakeCake said:

Hi

Does anyone know if Allowance for Lowered Standard of Occupation is still paid when a War Pensioner reaches the age of 65 and beyond or does it stop at 65 when Age Allowance is paid?

Logic says it stops but I have a feeling it may not because WPs are not always logical with all the changes over the years to legislation

Thanks in advance for any help

No, ALSO does not stop (unless your income from a job etc rises to the extent it cancels out the ALSO), What you cannot do is put in a fresh ( or new) claim to receive Allowance for Lowered Standard of Occupation (ALSO) once you reach the age of 65.

You will receive Age Allowance on top.

One thing to be careful of though is once one is over age 65, if you lose ALSO for any reason, you cannot reclaim it.

Thus if you apply for a DWP 'Income Replacement Benefit' such as ESA or Universal Credit with a Lowered Standard for Work or Work Related Activity component, Veterans_UK will stop ALSO as they are treated as overlapping benefits if the ALSO was initially claimed on or after 6th April 2009. 

Following an Upper Tier Tribunal ruling by Judge West in January of this year, it will be the ALSO that will stop if these overlapping benefits are claimed (The judgement related to Unemployability Supplement but applies inter-alia  with ALSO). ALSO cannot then be reclaimed due to being over 65.

So, if thinking of claiming any DWP benefit which may cause overlap with ALSO when over 65, do get advice from such as the Veterans Welfare Service or Royal British Legion Money Team in advance of putting in a claim. Do not rely on such as the DWP, CAB or other generalist benefits advisors as they often are unaware of the full effects of submitting such claims.

SteakBakeCake

Thank you so much for that Gandalf644, very helpful.

This bit intrigued me..."if the ALSO was initially claimed on or after 6th April 2009. "

So does this mean the overlapping benefit rules don't apply to anyone with an ongoing claim for ALSO that started before 6th April 2009?

Gandalf644

SteakBakeCake said:

Thank you so much for that Gandalf644, very helpful.

This bit intrigued me..."if the ALSO was initially claimed on or after 6th April 2009. "

So does this mean the overlapping benefit rules don't apply to anyone with an ongoing claim for ALSO that started before 6th April 2009?

Yes (however, there is a 'but'),

It was an amendment to Article 15 (which deals with ALSO) of the Service Pensions Oder 2006 during 2009.

See Para 6 of Statutory Instrument 706/2009 (below):

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2009/706/pdfs/uksi_20090706_en.pdf

UC (with an LCW/LCWRA) being classed as analogous to ESA/IB etc in the above.

But, it must be read with Judge West's subsequent Upper Tier ruling, that Unsupp (and ALSO) as 'Income Replacement benefits' can be abated by any Universal Credit LCW/LCWRA award. It would thus also apply to Income Related ESA (which only had a £10 disregard of the whole War Pension anyway).

Thus in practice nowadays, the amendment to Article 15 of the Service Pensions Order mainly applies in the cases where Contributory ESA is in payment as well as ALSO. If the ALSO was claimed on or before 5th April 2009 fine. If ALSO was claimed on or after 6th April 2009 then it is a case of either/or.

Then another 'But. If one claimed ALSO on or after April 2006, one can claim Contributory ESA for 'NI credits only'. Nothing monetary is paid (so many don't bother, or are advised not to bother), however one's National Insurance record is credited with NI credits which count towards one's State Pension.

A lot of advisors do not realise this and also a lot of DWP staff would rather you were 'off their books' or don't know about it anyway, mainly due to changes with 'New Style' Contributory ESA. It is truly a minefield to use a service related analogy!

SteakBakeCake

Thanks again Gandalf644 for such an informative reply.