Britain's biggest pensioner organisation, the National Pensioners Convention (NPC) is calling on the government to admit that their policy of means-testing the country's older population has failed to end pensioner poverty.
 
The call follows a new report out today (September 5) from Just Retirement Solutions, revealing that one in four pensioners are unaware of their entitlement to state benefits.
 
The latest official figures from the Department for Work and Pensions also highlight how ineffective the means-tested Pension Credit has been at tackling pensioner poverty:
 
There are up to 1.7m pensioners who are eligible, but do not receive the Pension Credit (ENR - eligible non-recipients). This represents a take-up rate of between 61%-70% - below the government’s stated target of 73%.
• 33% of these individuals (ENRs) are aged 80 or over
• 2.5m pensioners in Britain are said to be living in poverty
• 34% of ENRs are missing out on up to £60 a week in unclaimed benefits
• Overall, up to £2.9bn in Pension Credit goes unclaimed

The Pension Credit take-up rate is the lowest in the East Midlands, London, the South East, South West, East of England and Wales where the number of pensioners who are eligible but don’t claim is higher than those actually receiving the benefit (see table below for regional breakdown)
 
The NPC’s own research offers a number of reasons as to why pensioners are reluctant to make a claim. These include:
 
• Feeling that the process of claiming is demeaning
• Being unaware of the rules and/or a belief that they are ineligible to claim
• An unwillingness to disclose personal information
• A complicated and off-putting claiming process
 
Dot Gibson, NPC general secretary said: “When Gordon Brown was in opposition in 1993, he claimed he wanted to be the first Labour chancellor to end the means-testing of Britain’s elderly, yet he has been the architect behind the biggest expansion of means-testing of pensioners since WWII.

"After more than five years, the Pension Credit still fails to reach nearly 2m of the country’s poorest older people – because they are unwilling to take part in what they see as a demeaning process. It’s time the government realised that pensioners and means-testing simply don’t mix.

"What older people want is a decent state pension which is set above the poverty level of £165 a week and rises each year in line with earnings.”