From the news section on this very web site on the 5.12.2007...

"Backdating of pension credit, housing benefit and council tax benefit claims for those aged 60 or over is to be limited to three months, the government has announced.

As part of a package of simplification measures aimed at making the benefit system 'simpler and less intrusive for older people', Minister for Pensions Reform Mike O'Brien said today that -

'Whilst we strive to deal with claims sensitively and without unnecessary intrusion, we know that some pensioners don't like being asked for information about their incomes and personal circumstances. A shorter back-dating period ... will significantly cut the amount of personal information we need to request – and speed up claims.'"

Is this some kind of yule tide joke? Does the Minister really believe he can flog this cut as an improvement?

As we all know, guarantee credit alone can boost weekly income of a single person on basic pension by around £32.00 per week (thats without any disability/carer additions, and irrespective of savings credit etc etc). Cutting backdating by 39 weeks means a reduction of nearly £1,300.00 in that example.

However, I am sure that pensioners would gladly trade this degree of loss, for the reduced amount of intrusion the changes will bring!!

Its a wonderful world.

This really is one of the worst examples of blatantly misleading people as to the intentions of a reform that i can remember seeing to be honest. Similar to the proposals to "simplify" the backdating period for DLA claims in April.

From the wonderful people who refused to include in the legislation a definition of what "right to reside" actually means, in case they worded it in such a way that they inadvertently excluded some categories of people who actually might have a right to reside.

Panic, panic, panic

Given the large number of claimants we encourage to delay claiming Savings Credit for one year, due to HB & CTB taking 85% of the on-going paymenst but ignoring the full one year backdating amount when we claim it later I thought I had quite a bit of checking our diary for next year, thankfully it does not start until October 2008.

Have to agree what a load of cr*p though.