i have a cl. who received widows mothers allowance since 30/06/71.
on 17/11/06 cl. reached retirement age.
at this time they contacted pension service who advised cl. they could defer state retirement pension indefinitely.
however, on 18/02/09 cl. claimed state retirement pension (srp) which was awrded but only backdated to 17/02/08, and not 17/11/06 when cl. reached pension age.
why have pension service not backdated cl. srp to 17/11/06, and only gone back as far as 17/02/08, 12 months after cl. claimed.

any thoughts, as ever, greatly appreciated ...

pete

As far as I know there has never been any power to backdate SRP more than 12 months - certainly not in the time span you are talking about. However if you defer taking your pension for more than a year, you can get a lump sum equivalent to the amount foregone plus interest, or if you defer it for more than 5 weeks you can get an increment on the pension you would have got. But I can't for the life of me remember when the law chagned to allow this - was it April 2005?

So you do get some benefit from deferral (I am still waiting to hear how much I will be getting for having deferred mine for 70 weeks...)