21 March 2010
This information applies to England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
Some of the rules about benefits depend on your age. In many cases, the rules change when you get to the age of 60.
For example, after 60, it may no longer be a condition of your benefits that you have to be looking for work. You could get Pension Credit to top up your income without having to look for work. There are some exceptions to this rule, for example, if you’re a man between 60 and 65, you can choose to claim Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) and to get that, you have to be available for work and looking for work. But you don't have to claim JSA. For more information about Pension Credit, see under heading Pension Credit.
For more information about Jobseeker's allowance, see Benefits for people looking for work.
Another example of how the rules can change when you get to the age of 60 is if you're a woman getting Carer's Allowance. When you reach 60, you might get Retirement Pension and you'll no longer get Carer's Allowance. For more information about Retirement Pension, see under heading Retirement Pension.
For more information about Carer's Allowance, see Benefits for people who are sick or disabled.
If you are already getting benefits and you are approaching the age of 60, you might need to consult an experienced adviser about how the different benefits work together. If you have a choice between different benefits, an experienced adviser can help you choose which is best for you. You can consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
State pension age is currently 60 for women and 65 for men. A man cannot get State Retirement Pension until he is 65. However, once he is over 60 he can claim any other benefit that a woman over 60 can claim. State pension age is changing so that men and women will have the same state pension age, but this is happening gradually. If you are a woman born after 5 April 1950 the changes will affect the age at which you can claim State Retirement Pension. For other benefits, it will affect both men and women born after 5 April 1950.
If you are a woman born after 5 April 1950, and you want to check when you will reach state pension age, there is a state pension age calculator on the Directgov website at www.direct.gov.uk. You can also consult an experienced adviser, for example at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
If you are 60 or over, you may be able to claim means-tested benefits such as Pension Credit (see under heading Pension Credit), Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit, depending on your income. Your Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit will be worked out differently once you are 60, so you may be entitled to these benefits when you were not before. If you are already getting the benefits you may be able to get more money once you are 60.
For more information about Housing Benefit, see Help with your rent - Housing Benefit, and for more information about Council Tax Benefit, see Help with your Council Tax – Council Tax Benefit.
If you get Pension Credit and you do not live in a care home, you will be able to get help with fuel costs during very cold weather. These are known as cold weather payments.
For more information about cold weather payments, see Help for people on a low income – the Social Fund.
If you’re over 60, you're entitled to free bus travel in England, Wales and Scotland and may get cheaper rates on other sorts of public transport.
For more information about travel concessions in England, Wales and Scotland, see Public transport.
Once you are over 60, you will probably be entitled to a Winter Fuel Payment - see under heading Winter Fuel Payments.
You will also get a Christmas bonus - see under heading Christmas Bonus.
Once you reach pension age you may be able to get a state Retirement Pension - see under heading Retirement Pension.
If you are disabled, you may be able to claim benefit for the extra costs of your disability. This will depend on your age and other circumstances. If you look after a disabled person in their own home, you may be able to claim Carer’s Allowance.
If you are already getting benefits because you have a disability or look after a disabled person, some of these benefits will be affected when you reach state pension age. For example, you cannot get Incapacity Benefit once you are five years over state pension age and you can't get Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) when you reach state pension age. If you are getting Carer’s Allowance or Severe Disablement Allowance, this will be affected by any State Retirement Pension you get.
For more information about benefits for people who are disabled, see Benefits for people who are sick or disabled.
If you are getting benefits because of a disability and you are near pension age, you should consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
If your husband, wife or civil partner has died, you cannot get a weekly Bereavement Benefit once you have reached state pension age. However, you may be able to get state Retirement Pension based on your national insurance contributions of your late spouse or civil partner - see under Retirement Pension.
In some circumstances, you may be able to claim a Bereavement Payment that is a lump sum one-off payment. Whether you can get a Bereavement Payment will depend on your age when your husband, wife or civil partner died and whether they were entitled to a state Retirement Pension at the time.
For more information about bereavement benefits, see Benefits and bereavement.
If you have responsibility for children, you may be able to claim Child Benefit for the children, and, depending on your income, Child Tax Credit.
For more information about Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit, see Benefits for families and children.
If you work more than 16 hours a week, you may be able to claim Working Tax Credit, depending on your other income. There is no upper age limit for Working Tax Credit. Remember that any earnings will affect benefits and tax credits.
For more information about Working Tax Credit, see Benefits and tax credits for people in work.
You do not have to give up work when you claim Retirement Pension, and it is not affected by your earnings. Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance can also be paid if you are working.
State Retirement Pension is a benefit for people of state pension age that is based on their national insurance contributions. You do not have to have stopped working in order to get Retirement Pension. Although you can claim it when you reach state pension age you do not have to claim it at 60 or 65. If you prefer, you can wait and receive it later, either as a lump sum with your normal weekly pension or as an increased weekly rate of pension. This will mean you get more Retirement Pension (see under Extra pension, below). You have to make a claim to get state Retirement Pension.
If you have not paid enough national insurance contributions yourself, but are or have been married or in a civil partnership, you may be able to get some state Retirement Pension based on your husband, wife or civil partner's national insurance contributions -see under Claiming on your spouse or civil partner's contributions.
If you are 80 or over, you may be able to get some Retirement Pension even if you have not paid enough national insurance contributions (see under Retirement Pension for people over 80, below).
State Retirement Pension is administered by the Pension Service in England, Wales and Scotland, and by the Social Security Agency in Northern Ireland.
There are rules about age discrimination which say that you cannot be forced to retire before the age of 65. However, these do not affect the age at which you can get state retirement pension.
For more information about age discrimination and retirement, see Age discrimination at work.
State Retirement Pension is made up of a basic pension plus increases for your husband or wife or the person who looks after your children. Increases are not currently paid for civil partners (unless they look after your children – see below). You may also get an additional pension, a graduated pension or extra pension paid on top of the basic pension.
There is a set amount of basic pension. If you have not paid enough national insurance contributions to get a full pension, you may get a percentage of the set amount.
You can get an increase to the basic pension for your husband or wife if they are under 60. If you do not get an increase for your spouse, you can get it for someone else who looks after your children. This can include an unmarried same-sex or opposite-sex partner, or a civil partner. It can also include someone who is not your partner but who lives with you or who you employ to look after your child. If your spouse or the person who looks after your children earns more than a certain amount the increase will not be paid. If you are a man and your wife is getting a Retirement Pension based on your national insurance contribution record, you cannot claim an increase as well.
You cannot get increases for your children themselves if you are claiming your Retirement Pension after 5 April 2003. Instead, you should claim Child Tax Credit. If you were already claiming increases for your children before this date, you can carry on receiving them for as long as you get Child Benefit for your child or children, but you will lose them if they stop for more than a short time. Increases for children are affected by the earnings of your partner if they live with you.
For more information about increases for dependants, including children, you should consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
Additional pension is also known as ‘SERPS’ (state earnings related pension) or the state second pension. SERPS is paid on top of the basic pension and is based on your earnings from 1978 to 2002. From 6 April 2002, if you are working and haven’t claimed state Retirement Pension, you accrue additional pension under a scheme called the state second pension (S2P) and not under SERPS. Any additional pension accrued under SERPS will not be lost.
However, if you are or were ‘contracted out’ of the additional state pension scheme and contributing to an occupational pension, a stakeholder pension or personal pension scheme, you will not accrue any additional pension for the period you are contracted out.
If you're contracted out of SERPS/S2P, you may want to check that you made the right decision. Some older people are likely to be financially worse off by contracting out. To find out more about contracting out of SERPS/S2P, see the leaflet produced by the Government financial watchdog the FSA: The State Second Pension – should you be contracted out?
A very small number of people above a certain age, were wrongly advised to opt out of SERPS between July 1988 and April 1997. If you are in this group of people, you could be entitled to compensation. To find out more, see the FSA leaflet: The State Second Pension – were you wrongly advised to opt out?
If you paid special graduated contributions on earnings between 1961 and 1975, you may be entitled to a graduated pension (also known as graduated retirement benefit). You can get this even if you are not entitled to any basic state Retirement Pension. However, the amounts of graduated pension are small, so you may get a lump-sum payment instead of weekly payments.
If you do not claim Retirement Pension at 60 or 65, you will earn extra pension. If you have already claimed your pension, you can cancel the claim in order to earn extra pension later on, but you can only do this once.
Interest will be paid on the pension you do not claim so that you receive more money when you make your claim at the later date. This will be paid either as an increased weekly rate of state Retirement Pension, or you can get it as a lump sum on top of your normal weekly pension. Waiting to claim your Retirement Pension is known as deferring your pension.
You can get more information about deferring your pension from the Directgov website at www.direct.gov.uk or you should consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
If you were getting Incapacity Benefit immediately before you claim Retirement Pension, you may have been getting an age-related addition as part of that benefit. Incapacity Benefit is for people who cannot work, and stops when you reach state pension age or 65 or 70 (depending on the type of Incapacity Benefit). The age-related addition is paid if you were under a certain age when you became incapable of work.
When you claim Retirement Pension and transfer to that benefit, you can continue to receive the age-related addition you were getting with Incapacity Benefit. However, it will be reduced by any additional pension or graduated pension you receive.
It is not possible to make a new claim for Incapacity Benefit on of after 27 October 2008, unless the claim can be linked to a previous period of entitlement.
For more information on Incapacity Benefit and the age-related addition, see Benefits for people who are sick or disabled.
If you are 80 or over, you are entitled to Retirement Pension even if you have not paid enough national insurance contributions. This is known as a Category D pension. You can claim it if you do not get any state Retirement Pension at all, or if you get Retirement Pension but it is paid at a reduced rate which is less than the Category D pension. In this case you will get some Category D pension on top of your existing state pension to make it up to the rate of Category D pension. You must be living in the UK when you claim, and you must have lived here for at least ten years since you were 60.
If you are already getting some state Retirement Pension you do not need to make a claim for this extra money. It should be paid automatically. If you are not getting any state pension, you can claim up to two months before your 80th birthday, or when you are already 80. You should use the form in leaflet NI184 that you can get from the Pension Service or local benefits office. You will have to provide your birth certificate and, if you are a married woman, your marriage certificate, but if you don’t have these, you should still apply and try to prove your date of birth in some other way.
If you are 80 or over, you will also get an age addition of 25 pence a week with whatever state Retirement Pension you are getting, and you will get a Christmas bonus - see under heading Christmas bonus.
If you want more information about Category D pension, the Pension service may be able to help. You should also consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau.
| Retirement Pension | Weekly rate from 6 April 2009 |
| Basic pension | £95.25 |
| Increase for spouse under 60 or person looking after children | £57.05 |
| Increase for children (only paid with existing claims) | |
| For first child | £8.20 |
| For each additional child | £11.35 |
| Age addition for over 80s | £0.25 |
| Retirement Pension for people over 80 who haven't paid enough national insurance | £57.05 |
The Pension Service should contact you before you reach state pension age and explain how you can claim Retirement Pension. If they do not get in touch, you should contact the local benefits office, the Pension Service (see www.direct.gov.uk for contacts details in your area) or or the State Pension claimline on: 0800 731 7898 or textphone on: 0800 731 7339.
There is also a Welsh language line which is: 0800 731 7936 or textphone: 0800 731 7013.
In Northern Ireland you should get in touch with the Social Security Agency at a local benefits office or on 0808 100 2658 (textphone 0808 100 2198). Or you can claim online at the website of the Department for Social Development website at: www.dsdni.gov.uk.
The claim form for Retirement Pension is BR19. If you get in touch by phone, the Pension Service can help you to make your claim over the phone. You will not get a claim form. At the end of the phone call, you should be advised how much retirement pension you are entitled to.
You do not have to claim your pension at 60 or 65, and if you decide to defer it, you do not have to tell the Pension Service. When you do claim, you should use form BR19 that you can get from local benefits offices, the Pension Service or the national teleclaim service.
When you make your claim for state Retirement Pension, you must include your national insurance number, and the national insurance number of any adult dependant you are claiming for (for example, your wife, husband or someone else who looks after your children). You will also have to show that the number belongs to you by proving your identity, for example, by providing a birth certificate or passport. If you think you have a national insurance number but you do not know it, you should include information to help the office to find it. If you do not have a national insurance number, you will have to apply for one before you can claim Retirement Pension. You will have to prove that you have reached pension age, for example by providing your birth certificate, passport, or health records.
For more information about national insurance numbers, see National insurance – contributions and benefits.
If you have problems providing your national insurance number or proving your identity, or if you have difficulty proving your date of birth, you should consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
If you are married, have been married or in a civil partnership and cannot get the full rate of Retirement Pension because you do not have enough contributions, you may be able to claim some pension based on your husband wife, or civil partner's contributions.
The amount you get depends on your circumstances, the level of your contribution record and the contribution record of your husband, wife or civil partner. You may get less than the basic amount. The rules are very complicated and they work differently depending on whether you are still married and your spouse is alive, you are divorced or widowed. If you are a civil partner, the rules depend on whether your civil partner is alive and whether your civil partnership has been dissolved.
If you want to know more about using your spouse or civil partner's national insurance contributions, you can ask the Pension Service (see under How to claim Retirement Pension, above). You can also consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
You can carry on getting your state Retirement Pension while you are in hospital. Any additional pension (SERPS or second state pension) you get is also not affected by a hospital stay.
If you want more information about what happens to your benefit when you go into hospital, you should consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
If you go to live abroad, you can still get your state Retirement Pension. In some countries (European Economic Area countries and some countries which have agreements with the UK), you will be able to get the annual increases in your pension that would be paid if you were still living in the UK. In all other countries your pension will stay at the same rate and you will not get an annual increase. You should tell the Pension Service International Pension Centre that you are going to live abroad by telephoning 0191 218 7777 (fax 0191 218 7293), or writing to them at International Pension Centre, Tyneview Park, Newcastle upon Tyne NE98 1RA.
If you are getting state Retirement Pension and you are going to live abroad, you can also consult an experienced adviser, for example, at Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
A Winter Fuel Payment is a tax-free payment for people of 60 or over. It is paid every year over the winter months to help with your fuel costs. However, it does not matter how you use the money. Winter Fuel Payments do not depend on how cold the weather gets. There are other payments that are only paid when the weather reaches a certain temperature, called cold weather payments. These are made to people on some income-related benefits during cold weather.
For more information about cold weather payments, see Help for people on a low income – the Social Fund.
You can get a Winter Fuel Payment if you are 60 or over in ‘the qualifying week’ for the winter concerned. The qualifying week always begins on the third Monday of September.
There are some people who cannot get a payment even if they are 60 or over. You will not get a Winter Fuel Payment if:
You have to live in the UK to get a Winter Fuel Payment and have no immigration conditions on your stay here.
If you are not sure whether or not you can get a Winter Fuel Payment, you should consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
The rate of the Winter Fuel Payment is usually announced in the summer before the qualifying week in September.
For the winter of 2009/10 the Winter Fuel Payment is £250 per household (£400 where you or your partner are aged 80 or over).
If you live in a care home, you get a reduced rate of Winter Fuel Payment. In 2009/10, this is £125 or £200 if you are 80 or over. However, if you live in a care home and get Pension Credit, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance or income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), you will not get a Winter Fuel Payment at all.
If you are not sure which rate of Winter Fuel Payment you are entitled to, you should consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
Most people who are entitled to a Winter Fuel Payment do not need to make a claim. If you get state Retirement Pension, Pension Credit, Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, Attendance Allowance, Disability Living Allowance, Incapacity Benefit, Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit, Carer’s Allowance, Severe Disablement Allowance or a Bereavement Benefit, and you are getting one of these benefits in the qualifying week you do not need to make a claim. A Winter Fuel Payment will be made automatically.
If you successfully claimed a Winter Fuel Payment the previous year and your circumstances have not changed, you also do not need to make a claim.
If you are not getting one of these benefits in the qualifying week and you have not successfully claimed a Winter Fuel Payment before, you will have to make a claim. The Department for Work and Pensions may get in touch with you anyway and send you a claim form. If this does not happen, you can get a claim form from the Winter Fuel Payments helpline - see under Winter Fuel Payments helpline or from the Directgov website at www.directgov.uk.
You should put in your claim by the 30 March 2010.
You cannot claim a Winter Fuel Payment for most previous winters. However, if you were 60 or over in qualifying weeks before 2000, and you did not get a Winter Fuel Payment because you were not getting a qualifying benefit, you can claim one now. There is no time limit for making this claim. The Department for Work and Pensions may get in touch with you and send you a claim form. If this does not happen, you can get a claim form from the website www.directgov.uk or from the Winter Fuel Payments helpline - see under Winter Fuel Payments helpline.
The Winter Fuel Payments helpline is on 0845 915 1515 (text phone 0845 601 5613). You can use this helpline for any queries you have about Winter Fuel Payments, or to find out what is happening if you are expecting a payment and it is late.
If you have made a claim for a Winter Fuel Payment do not get one, or get less than you think you should, you can challenge the decision which has been made on your claim. If you have not made a claim, you should get in touch with the Winter Fuel Payments helpline and ask for a formal decision to be made. Once you have a decision, you can ask the office to look at the decision again or you can appeal. If you are not happy with the service provided by the Winter Fuel Payments helpline or the Pension Service, for example, because of mistakes or delays, you can complain. You can do this whether or not you also want to challenge a decision.
For more information about challenging a benefit decision and about complaining, see Problems with benefits and tax credits.
If you do not agree with a Winter Fuel Payment decision or you want to make a complaint, you can also consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
If you are 60 or over and getting Retirement Pension or Pension Credit, you will be entitled to a Christmas Bonus. This is usually £10 a year. In some cases, you can also get a bonus for your partner.
Christmas Bonuses are not just paid to people of 60 or over, they can also be paid to some people getting disability benefits or bereavement benefits.
To find out more about the Christmas Bonus, go to the Directgov website at www.direct.gov.uk or phone the special enquiry line on 0800 141 2591.
In Northern Ireland, go to the Nidirect website at www.nidirect.gov.uk.
For more information about disability benefits, see Benefits for people who are sick or disabled. For more information about bereavement benefits, see Benefits and bereavement.
Pension Credit is a benefit for people aged 60 or over based on the amount of money that you have coming in. It is made up of guarantee credit and savings credit. The guarantee credit of Pension Credit tops up your weekly income to a guaranteed level. The savings credit is for people who have a small amount of their own income or savings. You may be entitled to the guarantee credit or the savings credit, or both. You can claim Pension Credit whether or not you are still working. You do not need to have paid any national insurance contributions.
Pension Credit is administered by The Pension Service.
You claim Pension Credit for yourself and your partner who lives with you. If you, your partner, or both of you, are living permanently in a care home, you will usually each have to claim Pension Credit as single people.
There are different rules for getting the guarantee credit and the savings credit. Remember that you may be entitled to both, so it is worth giving all the details on the claim form.
You can get the guarantee credit if you are 60 or over. It does not matter what age your partner is. You must be living in the UK and not have any immigration controls on your stay here that would stop you claiming benefits. You must also have income below a certain amount. The amount depends on your circumstances. There is no limit on how much capital - that is savings and property - you can have, but you will be treated as having income from any of your capital above £10,000.
You can get the savings credit if you or your partner is 65 or over. It does not matter which of you makes the claim for Pension Credit. You must be living in the UK and not have any immigration controls on your stay here that would stop you claiming benefits. You must have more than a certain amount of income, but not so much that you do not get any savings credit.
When you apply for Pension Credit, the Pension Service will first work out if you are entitled to any guarantee credit, and if so how much. Then they will look at whether you can get any savings credit.
Your weekly income (which includes your partner’s income if you live with your partner) is compared to a fixed weekly amount called the ’appropriate minimum guarantee’. The ‘appropriate minimum guarantee’ will vary for each person because it is made up of different elements which depend on your circumstances. The rates of the different elements are fixed and are usually increased every April.
You will only be entitled to guarantee credit if your income is less than the ‘appropriate minimum guarantee’. Only certain types of income count for Pension Credit and not all your income will be taken into account, which means it does not affect your Pension Credit. Other income is partially disregarded, which means you can get a certain amount each week before it affects your Pension Credit. For example, Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance are all fully disregarded. Savings above £10,000 will add to your income by £1 a week for every extra £500 (or part of £500).
Your amount of your guarantee credit is the difference between your ‘appropriate minimum guarantee’ and your income. If your income is more than your ‘appropriate minimum guarantee’, you will not get any guarantee credit, but you may still get some savings credit.
Your ‘appropriate minimum guarantee’ includes a standard minimum guarantee which is a set amount for a single person and a set amount for a couple. If you have additional needs, for example, because you are disabled, additional amounts will be added to your ‘appropriate minimum guarantee’. There are additional amounts for severe disability and for caring for a disabled person. If you have been transferred to Pension Credit from Income Support or income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, you may also get an extra amount to make sure you are not any worse off.
If you want more information about the additional amounts in guarantee credit, you should consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
If you have a mortgage or home loan, you may be able to get an extra amount to help with your mortgage interest. You may also be able to get help towards some other housing costs, for example, rent as a Crown tenant, ground rent for long leases and some service charges. However, in most circumstances, if you rent your home you cannot get any guarantee credit for housing costs and you should claim Housing Benefit instead.
For more information about Housing Benefit, see Help with your rent – Housing Benefit.
If there are other adults living in your home apart from your partner, your landlord, or a joint owner, tenant or lodger, a deduction may be made from the housing costs which guarantee credit can cover. This might apply, for example, if you have an adult son or daughter living with you.
If you want more information about the guarantee credit, you can go to www.direct.gov.uk, or you can consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
The amount of savings credit you can get depends on whether you have more or less weekly income that the ‘savings credit threshold’. This is a rate which is set each year and depends on whether you are a single person or a member of a couple. If your income is less than or equal to the savings credit threshold, you will not get any savings credit. If your income is more than the savings credit threshold, you may get some savings credit. However, if your income is greater than your ‘appropriate minimum income guarantee’ (see under How much guarantee credit, above), it may be too high to get any savings credit.
Working out savings credit is complicated. You can find out more about the calculation at www.thepensionservice.gov.uk or you can consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
You will have to make a claim for Pension Credit. You should claim Pension Credit on form PC1. You can get this by telephone, or in person at a Pension Service surgery, benefit office or local authority housing benefit or council tax benefit office. The national telephone helpline for Pension Credit is 0800 99 1234 (textphone 0800 169 0133). In Northern Ireland the Pension Service application line is 0808 100 6165 (textphone 0808 1001165). There is also information on the Directgov website at www.direct.gov.uk and in Northern Ireland at www.dsdni.gov.uk where the claim form is also available.
If you telephone, the Pension Service staff can fill in an application form over the telephone and send it to you to check and sign, if you would find this helpful.
To make a valid claim for Pension Credit, you must provide certain information, usually within one month of making your claim. For example, you will need your national insurance number or evidence to allow the Pension Service to find your number. If you do not have a national insurance number, you will have to apply for one.
For more information about national insurance numbers, see National insurance - contributions and benefits.
You will also have to prove your identity. You may be able to do this by providing a document such as a driving licence, birth, marriage or civil partnership certificate, or a passport. You may be asked to provide more than one piece of evidence. If you do not have any documentary evidence, try to provide as much other evidence and facts about yourself as possible.
You will also have to provide evidence of your income. This evidence could include, for example, pension payslips, proof of service charges, and proof of any other money you receive. You have to send or show the Pension Service original documents, not photocopies. They will be returned to you as soon as possible.
If you want further help with your claim, you can call the national Pension Service number or you could consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
Usually you get Pension Credit from the day that you first get in touch with the Pension Service to tell them you want to claim. You will have to supply all the required information to support your claim within one month. However, you may be able to get Pension Credit for a period of up to twelve months before you make your claim. This is called backdating. From 6 October 2008, you may be able to get backdated Pension Credit for a shorter period of three months. You do not have to give a reason for making a late claim, as long as you explain on your claim form when you first became entitled to Pension Credit.
You may commit benefit fraud if you give incorrect or misleading information, or fail to report a change of circumstances, which affects your Pension Credit. Even if you are not committing fraud, you can cause an overpayment, which will have to be repaid. Benefit fraud is a criminal offence and you can be prosecuted or asked to pay a penalty.
If you are worried about whether you might be suspected of fraud, you are under investigation or you have been convicted, or if you have been asked to repay an overpayment of benefit, you should consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens’ Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
Pension Credit will usually be paid directly into your bank, building society or post office account. The Pension Service will ask you about having your money paid directly into an account but you do not have to be paid this way if it is a problem for you. It is possible for Pension Credit to be paid by sending you a cheque in the post that can be cashed at the Post Office. If you are not able to collect your Pension Credit in person, you may be able to arrange for someone else to do this for you see under heading If you need help to claim or collect benefits.
For more information about methods of payment, see Payment of benefits and tax credits.
If you are getting any guarantee credit (on its own or with savings credit), you will automatically get the maximum amount of help when you apply for other benefits, and you will get help with certain costs. If you are getting savings credit on its own, you may still be able to get help with some of these costs.
Being on guarantee credit means you will get maximum Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. You will also get help with health costs, for example, free prescriptions, and help with the cost of court fees. Being on savings credit or guarantee credit means you can apply for help from the social fund, for example, budgeting loans, community care grants and funeral payments.
For more information about other help you may be able to claim, see Help for people on a low income – the Social Fund.
If you have made a claim for Pension Credit and been refused, or think that the amount you have been awarded is wrong, you can ask the Pension Service to look at the decision again, or you can appeal. You should do this within one month of the decision.
If you unhappy with the service you have received from the Pension Service, for example, because of delays or errors, you should complain. You can do this whether or not you are also challenging a Pension Credit decision.
For more information about challenging decisions, and about complaining, see Problems with benefits and tax credits.
If you are not happy with a Pension Credit decision or you want to make a complaint you can also consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
If you need help to claim or collect your benefits, you can ask for someone else to become your appointee or agent. An appointee can take on the responsibility of claiming and collecting your benefit if you are unable to do this yourself. An agent cannot make a claim for you, but you can arrange for an agent to collect your benefit from a bank, building society or post office if you are unable to get there.
If you want to appoint someone as an appointee or agent, or you want to become one for an elderly person you know, you should consult an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau. To search for details of your nearest CAB, including those that can give advice by email, click on nearest CAB.
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