A surge in applications for pension credit after the Government restricted winter fuel payments has led to a backlog of 92,000 claims. Thousands of pensioners are facing delays in receiving their winter fuel payments, with some potentially waiting until spring. The Government limited the energy bill support to those in receipt of means-tested benefits, leading to a spike in applications.
A surge in applications for pension credit after the Government restricted winter fuel payments led to a backlog of 92,000 claimsin need of financial help to pay their heating bills in the cold weather are set to have to wait until spring for their“At this rate, there will still be thousands of pensioners who applied before the deadline waiting for their winter fuel payment in the spring,” said Deven Ghelani, director of analytics firm Policy in Practice.
The benefits expert said that if staff were reducing the backlog by around 6,000 claims a week during the end of December and early January, it could take another 12 or 13 weeks to clear. Sir Steve Webb, the former Liberal Democrat pensions minister, also estimated the backlog could take months to resolve. He said the Government could “break the back” of the caseload “by the end of March”, based on reducing it by somewhere between 6,000 to 7,000 cases a week.
In the meantime, Age UK has had to help some of the most desperate pensioners. “We know of people who applied in December ,” said Abrahams. Dennis Reed, director of campaign group Silver Voices, blamed Reeves’s decision for the “chaos” and said some people “are not going to get their winter fuel payment until after the winter is over”.
PENSION CREDIT WINTER FUEL PAYMENT ENERGY BILL SUPPORT GOVERNMENT RESTRICTIONS BACKLOG DELAY
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