unclaimed occupational pension

Can someone clarify, treatment of unclaimed occupational pension for HB/CTB, cpag page 927 talks about electing to defer pensions, what happens if the pension is not due until the age of 65 but the person could draw it earlier thereby reducing the amount payable, is this still defering and therefore should the potential pension amount be counted as income for HB/CTB?  (PC are already treating this as income, and PC has been reduced accordingly?)

Is the claimant in receipt of PC?

If “yes”, the LA is required to follow the income taken into account for PC purposes - there is no discretion.  In turn, that means any appeal must be made against the PC decision for there to be any substantive effect.  I would suggest a combined appeal against both the PC and HB/CTB decisions, with the PC case necessarily being the “lead”.  As to whether an appeal would be successful will depend on the facts.

I’m a bit confused - easy i know :)

Is your client getting the GC of PC?  Are PS deducting the notional income for the Occ Pen from the GC?

If your client is in receipt of the GC there should be no question with HB/CTB anyway - they would be passported.

If you’re client is not yet 65 - the age at which they’d get their full pension - i am assuming that they’re not in receipt of the saving credit unless, do they have a partner who is 65 or over?

He is not yet 65 and not entiteld to PC based on the assumed income from his unclaimed pension , but has not told HB/CTB that he has an unclaimed occ pension , and getting full amount of both, I just wasnt sure if it is still treated as a defered pension as he isnt 65? and if i need to advise him to tell HB/CTB, hope that clarifies????

From advisernet:

The local authority may assume the client has certain income even if s/he is not actually receiving it, for example, because s/he would be entitled to it if s/he applied for it. However, a local authority should not normally treat social security benefits the client could apply for as notional income unless it is satisfied that the client would be entitled, and it has enough information to calculate the amount that would be due.

A client will not be treated as having notional income if s/he defers a category A or category B retirement pension, a shared additional pension, or a graduated pension.

If a client is entitled to claim a personal pension or income from a retirement annuity contract, s/he will be treated as having this income even if s/he does not claim it, for example, because s/he has deferred her/his pension.

Hope this helps.

If the claimant falls within the “working age” HB regs, HBR 42(2)(c) applies and the pension should NOT be taken into account as income.

However, if the claimant falls within the “Pension Credit age” regs, it’s HB(PC)R 41(4). In short, a deferred occupational pension counts as income from the date it could be / could have been acquired.

As to which set of regs your client falls within, it depends on his exact age (I’m assuming your client is not on IS / JSA(IB) / ESA(IR)).

I assumed he was of pension credit age as Cassie said they are taking account of his notional income for the purposes of Pension Credit - sorry if this is not the case.

I wonder whether this may depend on what the pension entitlement actually is.  In my (limited) experience, an occupational pension (which is what we are told this is) is not the same as a personal pension or entitlement under an annuity.

Many occupational pension schemes used to have (& presumably many still do have) a provision that states a fixed retirement age at which the pension HAS to be taken, but also include a provision that it can be taken up to X years before that date, with an actuarial reduction in the pension amount.  My reading of the original post gives me the impression that it is this type of pension we are being asked about.

Hence the question - is the action of not taking the pension before the fixed date the same as deferring it?  Without knowing anything about the regs. on this I don’t know the answer - perhaps it depends on the precise definition of “deferred” in the regs.  My inclination would be to say that the normal everyday use of the word would indicate delaying something until after the time at which one would usually do it (e.g. a man delaying taking his state pension beyond age 65).  That doesn’t seem to be the case here - it is rather a matter of not doing something prior to the date on which one is obliged to do it.

Thanks to all !