DWP action urged over ‘shameful’ Pension Credit take-up as 880,000 miss out on £3,900 | Personal Finance | Finance

The DWP needs to do more to raise awareness of Pension Credit as hundreds of thousands of people miss out on the support, an expert has said.

George Hulene, finance professor at Coventry University, said he believes the 880,000 people who are missing out on the benefit do so mostly because they are not aware of it.

The average Pension Credit claim is now worth £3,900, and claiming the benefit provides access to other support such as council tax discounts.

He told Express.co.uk: “This is really all to do with how much we, as a country, care about pensioners and ensuring that they have a fairly comfortable life.

“I will say this for my entire life, we owe it to our children and our pensioners to look after them and no expense should be spared to achieve this.

“For 850,000 households, in a country like ours, to miss on such an important payment, the Government and the Parliament ought to be ashamed.”

Express.co.uk asked the DWP if the department had looked at automating Pension Credit so those who are eligible automatically get the income top-up.

The group referred to a question in Parliament from 2022 when they were asked the same question. Guy Opperman, who was then pensions secretary, said: “For a means-tested benefit, such as Pension Credit, eligibility and award amounts are determined by a claimant’s specific circumstances – including their income, savings, capital assets, marital status or household composition.

“These details are not necessarily always previously known to Government. Given this complexity in the decision-making process, it is not possible to make automatic Pension Credit payments to those who might be entitled with sufficient accuracy.”

A DWP spokesperson also told Express.co.uk: “Since April 2022, our extensive communications campaign has helped drive Pension Credit claims to an all-time high, with applications up by around 75 percent in 12 months.

“And our recently launched ‘Invitation to Claim’ trials target those likely to be eligible for Pension Credit helping us test even more ways to ensure pensioners are receiving all the support they can.”

But Mr Hulene warned there may be vulnerable older Britons who do not know about Pension Credit or who do not have a support network to encourage them to apply.

He said: “There should be an automation process and it should basically include all pensioners who receive the state pension.

“Instead of looking, painstakingly for the households that might be eligible, automatically assume they all are and ‘flood’ the country with letters sent to all pensioners, all care homes, etc.

“This ‘Invitation to Claim’ should be expanded to the entire country and sent to all pensioner households, not just a handful of local authorities.”

He said this could include half a page of eligibility criteria and an explanation of how to claim, which would be supported by either local councils or the DWP itself.

He said the Government could also uses its resources to spread awareness in areas where pensioners often visit.

The professor said: “For example, for the next six months have posters and messages in bus stops, on busses, in train stations, in council houses, in GPs (even ask GPs to nag pensioners when they speak with them), in shops, in care homes, food banks, and the list can go on.”

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