Claim for Pension Credit - still waiting for DWP response

B_rains

Hi

I won't go into the full details but my mother put a claim in for Pension Credit in October 2023 but this was turned down as they claimed she didn't satisfy the conditions of entitlement.

Pension Credit said that they were waiting for copy of bank statements to be received and as they hadn't received them within the 10 working days from their letter the claim was closed. Savings at the time were near £29k. Pension Credit calculator and "entitledTo" calculator both showed entitlement of Pension Credit albeit around £19 per week. Add on Council Tax Rebate of over £28 per week adds up to over £48 per week.

On phoning Pensions Credit Team she was advised that they had received the documents and would be undertaking a 'mandatory reconsideration' based on the documents received. No further letters were received to advise whether the claim had been successful or not. We were going calling back every ten days as requested to find out progress of the claim only to be told in May 2024 that they had closed the claim down and she was to make another claim that would be backdated to February 2024.

A second claim was made but once again no letter or calls from the Pension Team were forthcoming. Only the usual call back in ten days time. It has now been a whole year since my mother was made redundant. Now at the tender age of 80 she is struggling to make ends meet. Her savings are starting to dwindle and all because a Government Department has not resolved the claim.

We have now written to our local MP to take this forward (10th September 2024) and wait with baited breath on whether they will get any further then we have. 

Any advice would be much appreciated.

newatc

I think you have done the key move of informing your MP who will hopefully get the PCT to pull their finger out, Of course the PCT team will probably will be snowed under because of the Winter Fuel Payment situation but frustratingly for you , your mother started her application well before.
If you MP is Labour, I'd chase them up mentioning your next step will be to go the press. Plenty of the right wing papers would love the story.

Sam_666

Wrong place for post,   this should be in benefits section.

woolly_wombat

Sam_666 said:

Wrong place for post,   this should be in benefits section.

I disagree.  

The post is about a claim for Pension Credit

This is the pensions, annuities and retirement board.

Marcon

woolly_wombat said:

Sam_666 said:

Wrong place for post,   this should be in benefits section.

I disagree.  

The post is about a claim for Pension Credit

This is the pensions, annuities and retirement board.

...and Pension Credit is a benefit. I've asked for this to be moved to the Benefits Board.

Murphybear

newatc said:

I think you have done the key move of informing your MP who will hopefully get the PCT to pull their finger out, Of course the PCT team will probably will be snowed under because of the Winter Fuel Payment situation but frustratingly for you , your mother started her application well before.
If you MP is Labour, I'd chase them up mentioning your next step will be to go the press. Plenty of the right wing papers would love the story.

I applied for PC before the current hoo ha of needing it to get the winter fuel payment.  I hadn’t heard in 6 months so asked my Conservative  MP to contact the DWP.  I don’t know what he said but I get a letter from them very quickly saying I wasn’t eligible for it. 

I applied again in July 2023 and got a phone call in August 2024 saying they needed more information.  That is 13 months delay, I am too ladylike to say in a public forum what I think of that . They gave me a vague apology for the delay but didn’t say what had caused.  I have my own theories on that  . About a week later I got nearly £2k in my bank account which was from the DWP PC department.  

I   asked my new MP to look into the delay and he seems keen to support his pensioner constituents.  I have also contacted some of the campaigning organisations for pensioners, one is keen to talk to me about my experience.

As there has been so much publicity recently about the winter fuel payments and PC I am concerned that there will be many more delays and am thinking of contacting the newspapers, not sure which ones will have the most impact.  

I  send a message to all MSE pensioners who are thinking of applying for PC, please don’t let my negative experience, or that of others on here,  put you off.  If there is a long delay you will get your claim backdated.  I also would urge you to get your MP involved, the more MPs who contact the Labour Government the more notice they will take - hopefully. 

woolly_wombat

Marcon said:

woolly_wombat said:

Sam_666 said:

Wrong place for post,   this should be in benefits section.

I disagree.  

The post is about a claim for Pension Credit

This is the pensions, annuities and retirement board.

...and Pension Credit is a benefit. I've asked for this to be moved to the Benefits Board.

Technically the State Pension is also a benefit!