Government threatens to break pre-election promiseover winter fuel allowance

Britain’s biggest older people's organisation, the National Pensioners Convention (NPC), has criticised the government for breaking pre-election promises by threatening to remove the winter fuel allowance from millions of pensioners.

Reports in the media have suggested that ministers are considering a number of options including:

  • Raising the age of entitlement to the allowance from 60 to 66 earlier than has already been proposed in 2020
  • Paying the allowance at 75, in line with the TV licence
  • Means-testing the allowance and paying it only to those on benefits

Dot Gibson, NPC general secretary said: "The winter death rate amongst older people is a national scandal and getting worse. Last winter over 36,700 pensioners died of cold related illnesses – a staggering 13 pensioners every hour. Yet the government is now considering taking the winter fuel allowance away from millions of households which will only make matters worse.”

“This issue really goes to the heart of the debate as to whether the welfare state should be available to everyone. We have seen in pensions and care that a means-tested system is not as effective or efficient as a universal benefit in getting help to those who need it most. Of course wealthy pensioners get the winter fuel allowance as well as the very poorest – but the fairest way of dealing with the issue is to claw back that money using the taxation system.”

“Up to 3m pensioner households are already spending more than 10% of their income on fuel bills, and are living in fuel poverty. What older people need now is more money – not less. They need to be reassured that when the cold weather comes they will not be financially punished for keeping warm in winter. The government must give them confidence that they will be able to pay their bills by immediately ruling out any changes to the winter fuel allowance.”

Fuel Poverty Facts

  • Over 50 MPs have already signed an Early Day Motion (481) calling on the government to maintain the winter fuel allowance in its present form
  • Nearly 90 per cent of all excess winter deaths are of people over the age of 65.
  • There were 36,700 excess winter deaths of older people last year (Dec 08 - Mar 09)
  • Almost one in three older people live in homes with inadequate heating or insulation making their homes more difficult to heat and/or keep warm.
  • More than 1 in 4 people living in fuel poverty are over 70 years old
  • Average annual energy bills now exceed £1,000. This will absorb 16 per cent of the income of a single pensioner dependent on the pension credit minimum guarantee and the current £250 Winter Fuel Payment.

Care Commission must end era of means-testing and unfairness and establish a National Care Service funded through taxation

Britain's biggest pensioner organisation, the National Pensioners Convention (NPC) has called on the new Care Commission announced today by the health secretary Andrew Lansley, to end the era of means-testing and unfairness in the current care system and introduce a National Care Service funded through general taxation.

Dot Gibson, NPC general secretary said: "The establishment of a National Care Service that is universally available to all in need, free at the point of delivery and paid for by all, would be a tremendous step towards ending the era of means-testing and unfairness. Around 1m older people are already receiving care at home or in residential care - and large numbers are faced with a lack of dignity, poor services and huge bills. A National Care Service would put an end to this."

"Care in the UK is in crisis. For years it has been the Cinderella service of the welfare state – under funded and overlooked, but the main proposal from the coalition is simplistic and unrealistic. Their figures just simply don’t add up. Suggestions that people should pay lump sums or take out private health insurance just won’t tackle the inequalities in the system or prevent pensioners from having to sell their homes.”

“Older people and their families have a right to ask: why when education, the NHS and many other public services can be funded by society as a whole – should the care of our most vulnerable pensioners be left to individuals?”

“We must do more and faster to give financial help to the army of carers, improve the regulation and standards of care provided and ensure care staff are properly trained and paid for looking after our loved ones."

"The proposed care commission must also ensure it adequately reflects the views of older people themselves and isn't simply taken over by the great and the good who have no real understanding of how older people live their lives. A national care service can be afforded if we share the cost across society as a whole and pay for it through general taxation. All political parties should commit themselves to this principle and act now to make it a reality."

Care Facts

A snapshot of social and long-term care provision in England shows the following[1][1]:

Domiciliary Care

  • Around 1m older people receive some form of care in their own home, but around 2.5m have care needs.
  • 80% of those in need of care at home do not get it from the state.
  • The private and voluntary sector care providers receive around £9.3bn a year in public funding.
  • An estimated £5.9bn is spent by individuals on social care either through private contributions or through charges.
  • A huge unmet need and care gap exists between the services older people require and what they actually receive because services are being rationed. As a result, only those with high care needs qualify for assistance. This unmet need places an additional burden and strain on many relatives and friends who provide unpaid care (eg. 1.2m men and 1.6m women over 50 are unpaid carers).
  • All care in the home is means-tested, and individuals need an annual income of less than £13,000 to receive services free.
  • The charges for those with income above this level, vary widely depending on each local authority area, thus creating an unfair postcode lottery.

Long-term residential care

  • In 2003, out of 500,000 care places: 69% were in the private sector, 17% in the public sector and 14% in the voluntary sector.
  • Private care is worth around £6.9bn a year.
  • There are around 448,000 care home residents, 60% of which are self-funders.
  • 1 in 4 care workers leave their jobs every year and this high turnover is almost entirely due to poor pay and conditions of employment.
  • Within care homes, only one member of staff is required to have an appropriate care qualification (but even they do not have to be situated on-site).
  • Those with assets (including the value of their property) of more than £23,000 must fund their own care. Those between £13,000 and £23,000 are means-tested and pay a proportion whilst those below £13,000 have their charges paid by their local authority.
  • In 2008, the average fees for care home residents across the UK were £34,528 per year for nursing care and £24,128 for residential care.
  • The average cost of food in residential care is £3.50 a day.[2][2]
  • Nearly 150,000 dementia patients each year are given anti-psychotic drugs unnecessarily. The figure represents four in five of all the people who are being prescribed the drugs in care homes, hospitals and their own homes.[3][3]

Carers

  • 2.8m people aged over 50 provide unpaid care.[4][4]
  • Adult children provide their parents with 36 hours of unpaid care each month, estimated at a total annual UK cost of £39 billion. [5][5]
  • Nearly a quarter of all carers aged 75 and over (24%) provide 50 hours or more a week of informal care.[6][6]
  • The weekly Carer’s Allowance is currently £53.10, but is not payable to those carers who are also in receipt of a state pension.

[1][1] Shaping the Future of Care Together, NPC submission to the Care Green Paper, November 2009
[2][2] Inside Out, BBC South, 16.11.2009
[3][3] BBC News website, 12.11.2009
[4][4] Focus on Older People, ONS 2004
[5][5] LV Investment Group, March 2009
[6][6] Family Resource Survey 2006/7, DWP 2008

Government’s vision of social care is ‘hypocritical’

Britain’s biggest pensioner organisation, the National Pensioners Convention (NPC) has described today’s speech on the principles of social care reform by health secretary, Andrew Lansley, as ‘hypocritical’.

In his speech to the 5th International Carers Conference in Leeds, Mr Lansley said that the government had a duty to carers and those most in need, but since coming to power the Coalition government has already abandoned two key policies which would have provided much needed support to those people:

  • During the election campaign, the Liberal Democrats pledged to introduce a week’s break from caring, every year, to those 1m unpaid carers providing more than 50 hours of care each week.
  • Weeks before the election, Parliament passed the Free Personal Care at Home Bill, which would have provided free, non-means-tested care to 400,000 older people with the most severe care needs.

The government will not support either initiative.

Dot Gibson, NPC general secretary said: “It seems the first two casualties of the Coalition government’s new vision of social care are the army of unpaid carers and the 400,000 older people who they help to look after. These are among our most dedicated and poorest members of our society – and it’s frankly hypocritical for the health secretary to say that he wants to help them when his government has already started to back away from giving the support that they so desperately need.”

“Despite what Mr Lansley says, the government has kicked the issue of social care into the political long-grass by announcing yet another commission to look into it because the two parties of government can’t agree. The problem is the Conservatives want care to be paid for through private insurance and the Liberals haven’t made up their minds. Meanwhile our social care system remains in crisis and faces massive cuts in funding in the Autumn spending review. The people who are left to suffer while the ministers fudge the issue are the carers and their loved ones.”

Coalition government lacks a clear and coherent pensions' policy

Britain's biggest pensioner organisation, the National Pensioners Convention (NPC), has criticised the government for lacking a 'clear and coherent pensions' policy', following the announcement that private sector pension schemes would in future be linked to the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

This change will affect around 12m existing and future pensioners who qualify for a final salary/defined benefit occupational pension - and is expected to wipe as much as 25% off the value of their pension.

Under the existing rules, pensions rise in line with the traditionally higher Retail Price Index (RPI). Current figures show that the RPI is 5.1% compared to the CPI of just 3.4%.

Dot Gibson, NPC general secretary said: "On the one hand the government wants to roll back the state's responsibility in pension provision, and then on the other it starts to weaken the occupational pension system which will force more and more people to rely on state support. They simply don't have a clear and coherent pensions' policy."

"Both private and public sector workers are seeing their pensions under threat - yet they have paid into these schemes for years and have a right to expect back what they were promised. Pensions in this country remain among some of the worst in Europe and the government doesn't seem to have any idea how to improve the situation apart from making people work longer and giving them less. This is no solution. It's time we looked again at pensions and started to stengthen the state system to give a real guarantee in retirement."

Raising retirement age will only hurt the poor

Britain’s biggest pensioner organisation, the National Pensioners Convention (NPC) has criticised the government’s plans to raise the state pension retirement age describing it as an attack on the poorest members of society.

The NPC believes the decision ignores important information that shows that life expectancy is linked to affluence:

  • According to the latest district by district NHS figures, men in Blackpool live on average to 73.2 years – 10.5 years fewer than their counterparts in Kensington and Chelsea, whilst women in Hartlepool have the lowest life expectancy of 78.1 years; 9.6 years less than women in Kensington and Chelsea. These figures show that life expectancy rates are rising much faster in affluent areas, with average life expectancy in England for men standing at 77.7 years and for women at 81.8 years.
  • Current concerns about the rate of obesity amongst young children, the prevalence of poor diets, lack of exercise and increased stress must also surely raise doubts as to the health of future generations.
  • Plans to raise the retirement age have also failed to properly quantify issues such as the rate of unemployment and availability of work, the rights of younger people to find a job, the quality of the jobs older people will be offered (and will be prepared to accept) and the loss to wider society if pensioner volunteers (currently undertaking unpaid caring and charitable work) were otherwise in paid employment.

Dot Gibson, NPC general secretary said: “There can be no doubt that the wealthier you are, the longer you live, so raising the retirement age therefore is a direct attack on the very poorest in our society. There is a myth that we are all living healthier lives for longer and very little evidence that there are sufficient jobs around for everyone to keep working. This policy isn’t about choice, it’s about cutting costs and making the poorest pay the highest price. We must establish the right to a decent period of retirement otherwise we will soon see people working till they drop.”