Terms & Conditions

[Anonymous]

I’m probably being a bit dim here, but we have had a few cases where the assessed income figure given by the pension service is different from the income details we are using.In these cases it tends to be a different (sometimes higher) amount of state pension.It may be due to a difference when we uprated our SRP’s in April 2003.In spite of repeatedly advising claimants to tell us of changes there are still a number of pensioners who always wait until their renewal claim to tell us.Trouble is as some of them haven’t had a renewal form now because they don’t need one, they haven’t told us of any increase in income this year.
Anyway, if the pension service has a different i.e higher state pension figure, do we have to recalculate the claim using this figure back to April 2003?If it were a renewal claim or the claimant advised us of the correct SRP or in one case an increase in occupational pension, we’d just recalculate as a change of circs.Do we take the same line here? I assume we do. Just that I know the claimants are then going to moan that what they thought was going to give them more benefit has resulted in an overpayment( but then they should have told us of a change in the first place)

[Julian Hobson]

In don’t know what DWp expect us to do but I’ve heard (from local service pension service staff) of a case in Birmingham where a MIG conversion pensioner was found to have savings of £250,000. TPS will not be prosecuting or calculating an overpayment !!!!!!! does this mean we can follow suit ? I don’t think we will go back.

[Anonymous]

So the £250k was “money for their funeral” which would probably explain the building of a pyramid in the back garden.

OK a bit flippant but in cases as Julian has quoted, why not go back? If not aren’t we saying “OK, you got away with it for so long, fair play to you”. What impression does this give to those who have been pinged for not declaring a Private Pension of £10 a week?

Finally, at conference, didn’t Frank Newton advise that there were no plans for an amnesty in such cases. Perhaps someone who was in the room could confirm?

[Darren Tompkins]

I don’t know if it’s correct to do so, but to my way of thinking VF has been passed to The Pension Service so this is just a form of HBMS. Therefore, if a difference in OP, Capital, etc. is dicovered via the Pension Service’s AIF breakdown we will look into the claim and then amended as per usual rules. For example, if a pensioner had previously told us that his OP was £30/w but on the AIF it was £35/w we would ask for proof of when it increased and then amend it accordingly. The reasoning behind this is that the new regulations are only effective from 06OCT03, and if the details were incorrect before this date we should have been notified.

[Julian Hobson]

The real problem I have is that I bet there isn’t one case where the AIF post 06/10/03 is the same as the income prior to 06/10/03 so how do you choose which ones you do and don’t go back on ? The other problem is GCSC cases which may have been non passported prior to 06/10/03, how will you know that the income now is more than before ?

I’m not suggesting that it is inappropriate to go back but I don’t think the answer as to whether you do, is an easy one.

[Author]

Posts