Who's Listening?

This is a response from the Department of Social Security. 

Dear WarHeroes

Thank you for your E-mail of 4 March to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster concerning the treatment of War Pensions in the assesment of Housing Benefit(HB). Your correspondence has been passed to this Department for reply. I apologise for the delay in doing so.

In all the income-related benefits, taking income into account is, naturally, the norm and disregards are the exception. The mandatory £10 disregard for War Disablement and War Widows' Pensions is in recognition of the special nature of these pensions. That is why War Pensions are already treated more favourably than any other pensions across all of the income-related benefits, including Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit

Not only is the first £10 of a War Pension mandatorily disregarded, but the supplementary pension paid to "pre-1973" war widows, currently worth £51.71 a week, is also wholly disregarded. In addition, any mobility supplement, worth £37.75 a week, Constant Attendance Allowance, which can be up to £79.40 a week, Exceptionally Severe Disablement Allowance, £39.70 a week and Severe Disablement Allowance, £19.85 a week, paid to war disablement pensioners are wholly disregarded. In total, these mandatory disregards already cost central Government in excess of £20 million each year in additional Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit expenditure.

As you may know, local authorities have discretionary power to operate a local scheme to enhance the mandatory disregard of War Pensions, or make it total, and it may help to give the background to this. Prior to April 1988, local authorities had discretion to vary some of the rules for assessing Housing Benefit to enhance a person's entitlement to benefit. The Government recognised that this discretion was then creating an inequity amongst claimants and proposed to entirely abolish these local scheme provisions.

It was only in response to representations from the War Pensions lobby itself that war pensioners were a well-defined group which merited special consideration that the Government decided that local schemes could be retained for war widows and war disablement pensioners only. This is why local authorities have the power to enhance the mandatory £10 disregard, or make it total, when assessing entitlement to Housing Benefit and what is now Council Tax Benefit. The benefit cost that arises from operating such a scheme has to be met by the local authority, not from central Government subsidy, and it is therefore for each local authority to decide how much, if anything, its own electorate wishes to spend in this way having regard to its other priorities.

The question of having a full mandatory disregard for War Pensions would, of course, remove this area of local discretion. It would also, however, not only result in additional expenditure from central Government, but would also lead to pressure to disregard other forms of income, which could not be justified, whilst at the same time giving this group even greater advantages over other groups of pensioners in similar circumstances. As estimated expenditure on War Pensions payments will exceed £1.4 billion in 1996/97, the Government do not believe that it would be appropriate to allow war pensioners even further costly concessions.

In deciding the level of income disregards in income-related benefits such as Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit, consideration must be given to how far people with particular forms of income should have advantage over other benefit recipients. The advantage must not become too great or the benefits system becomes unfair. When deciding priorities, it must be established how best to help people with the limited resources available. Successive Governments have preferred to concentrate on maintaining benefit levels rather than increasing the amount of income which may be disregarded. This is in line with the Government's policy of targeting most help on people with the least resources.

Yours sincerely

J W Fewings