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Whatever the long-term benefits might be of providing an integrated service for people above and below working age, the re-organisation of social security into the Pension Service and Job Centre Plus continues to produce short-term problem areas.

One example is the sad saga of the underlying entitlement to carer's allowance that has resulted in at least 3,000 older carers being denied their correct entitlement to income support.

As the Pension Service moves towards its goal of being a mainly telephone-based service, the need to move benefit assessment to regional centres has grown. All that remains of the service at local level in many areas is a piecemeal and unsatisfactory "outreach service".


This might be a price worth paying if the quality of work done at the regional centres was uniformly high. But this is far from the case. This is in part because of the enormous number of new staff that have been recruited to work in the new centres: in some cases, more than 80 per cent of the staff are new to social security.

This inexperience manifests itself in many ways, not least in the treatment of income support claims from older carers. Since October 2002 carers aged 65 or over have been able to claim invalid care allowance (as it was known up until this month). Although the allowance is often not paid (it is normally less than the retirement pension that the carer already receives), it is still worth claiming. This is because the unpaid carers' allowance can trigger the carer premium within income support, housing benefit and so on.

Or at least it should. But many of the inexperienced staff in the Pension Service failed to grasp this aspect of the benefits system. Advisers have been aware for some time that Pension Service staff seemed incapable of awarding the carer premium in cases of "underlying entitlement". In some cases, the premium was simply refused; in others, it was awarded but the cared-for person then had their own severe disability premium stopped. Belatedly, the Pension Service has acknowledged a serious problem. It seems that up to 3,000 cases have been identified where Pension Service staff made a mistake and pensioners have been underpaid or refused income support altogether.


Pension Service staff do not have an easy job - pay and morale are poor and the quality of training and support seems inadequate. But that is no excuse for mistakes on this scale. Also, it is only because of the external pressure applied by advice workers from the voluntary and state sectors that the problem was even identified. It calls into question the Pension Service's internal quality control systems.

This is a crucial issue with claims for pension credit now being handled. When I ring the dreaded call centre about my car insurance or my credit card, at least I am told that some calls are recorded for training and monitoring purposes.

If the Pension Service wants to ape the private financial sector and move towards a mainly phone-based service, it must at least embrace the quality standards to which those companies aspire. At present, we seem to have the worst of both worlds and the loser, as ever, is the unrepresented claimant.

Gary Vaux is head of money advice, Hertfordshire Council. He is unable to answer queries by post or telephone. If you have a question to be answered please write to him c/o Community Care.