Target winter fuel help at poor OAPs
Yousaf urged to take payout from better-off pensioners
HumzA Yousaf is facing calls to strip wealthy pensioners of their Winter Fuel Payment.
Government advisers said the benefit is “poorly targeted” in the fight against rising poverty levels.
Pensioners can receive up to £600 a year to help with fuel bills under the current UK system.
The non-means-tested scheme will fall under Holyrood’s control soon and be renamed the Pension Age Winter Heating Payment.
It will be delivered on a like-forlike basis and one million Scots pensioners will still be eligible.
But the Poverty and Inequality Commission wants a rethink.
In a consultation response on the future of the scheme, it said linking the payment to the state pension age was not a “progressive policy” from an anti-poverty perspective.
“While non-means tested benefits can play an important role in poverty reduction efforts, this particular instrument is extraordinarily poorly targeted as regards to addressing poverty,” it said.
Pensioner poverty was lower than in other households, it said, and maintaining the current system would be “inefficient”.
It supported an outside panel’s view a replacement benefit should be “targeted, not universal”. And it flagged up options for ensuring the payment is restricted to lower income pensioners.
These included targeting the payment at those in receipt of Pension Credit or taxing it for wealthier pensioners.
But Katherine Crawford, chief executive of Age Scotland, said: “We believe keeping the Pension Age Winter Heating Payment as a universal, cash payment is the best way to ensure all older people across Scotland, particularly those on low and modest incomes, are supported to maintain a safe and warm home.
“Our concern is that changing the eligibility criteria may risk older people missing out on vital funds. In terms of means-testing as a way of identifying eligibility, many miss out on social security benefits because they have a small private pension or small savings that put them just over the threshold for additional support.
“Even though people are sometimes only a few pounds over a limit and/or are still on low incomes, they still struggle financially. The WFP is essential for those people as it allows them extra flexibility to heat their home in colder months, which they don’t normally get and wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise.
“We also know hundreds of thousands of older people already miss out on benefits they are entitled to due to a variety of barriers. For example, almost £332million in Pension Credit support is left unclaimed every year.”
Social Justice Secretary ShirleyAnne Somerville did not close to door to future reform of the scheme, saying: “We recently consulted on our plans to replace Winter Fuel Payments in Scotland with Pension Age Winter Heating Payment and received more than 900 responses from a wide range of organisations and individuals.”
She added: “We will continue to explore the potential longer term development of Pension Age Winter Heating Payment. The responses to the consultation will support this work.”