This "is" a can of worms. Seems the more you complain the more gets sorted.
I don't see why ESA should come into it if you get Unemployability Supplement.
It only comes under ESA rules now as they linked it to Incap. I think it can be payed as Serps or Additional Pension as it is.
I was told I would be payed SERPS whether I took state pension at 65 or not. I was told it would appear as SERPS!
If they can pay it then, they can pay it as that now.
if not 65 you will get visit from WP services as you get near pension age as you DONT have to take your old age pension you can keep unsupp and add another "age allowance" to it ..... its worth a bit more than old age pension at present and I am told 99% take it rather than old age pension as its tax free unlike old ageOriginally Posted by mercmac
not sure what old age pension is but to me unsupp with wife and age allowance would be £180 per week plus comforts allowance on top of pension at age 65 todays rates
I was told that when i get near 65 I could take old age pension or keep the war pension and that many do.
It was then I was told that I would get SERPS. Not Additional Pension but Serps.
If you are on unempolyability Supplement I would think you would carry on getting it past 65.
In that case it would make sense to pay you Additional pension or Serps now and just keep paying it to you.
I was awarded my war pension in 1993 and got Additional pension from then. So they pay me it for 19 years then stop it and start again when I get to 65 and pay it as Serps?? Crazy.
There must be a lot of war pensioners on Unemployability supplement that know this, and I've heard it's 7000 +.
We have been paid our SERPS as incapacity benefit when that is Illegal.
As we are paid SERPS as Incap we have to complete all works tests and attend medicals under the Incapacity rules.
We qualify for SERPS under the unemployablity Supplement anyway, so if we take the Incap test and fail it, we still qualify for Serps as we are in receipt of Unemployability supplement from the War pensions and they can't do a thing about that!
How much money has been wasted over the years due to this childish anomaly?
Thanks mercmac and davewhit - I'm seeing the problems now. Certainly a can of worms, and it does sound as though the whole thing needs a legal judgment (which unfortunately could go as far as the European courts and take forever.)
But I can see another potential can of worms in the idea of 7000 war pensioners being the only group automatically transferred to a form of ESA SERPS. And that is all the people who were, or are, getting SDA. Are they being automatically transferred to ESA?
Meanwhile on similar lines, Cameron has already had to admit that something needs to be done to ensure ex servicemen will be able to continue on their DLA mobility component. All well and good - until someone decides to bring a challenge for those on IIDB as well.
As we have said all along the reforms just haven't been planned thoroughly.
The law states you cannot get Incapacity benefit and Unemployability supplement, but some where down the line to make things easy on themselves they paid SERPS as Incapacity benefit. The law is black and white and I think they have hung themselves. They have bent their own rules to make things easier for themselves.
OK, they can abolish Incapacity benefit and the SERPS entitlement under that, but war Pensioners are claiming their Serps under their entitlement under Unemployability Supplement.
That isn't being abolished so the entitlement should still stand.
Being paid our Serps as Incap must be a breach of the law.
We are not claiming Incap, or ESA.
Because they pay us our Serps as incap we have to fill out forms and go to medicals. They shouldn't pay us Serps as incap as it isn't, component or not. Serps is a stand alone payment, payable on it's own at retirement age, as part of unemployability supplement or as was a part of incapacity benefit. The latter is being abolished, but Serps or it's other methods of qualifying for it aren't.
I think we are being hoodwinked here.
7065 war pensioners get unsupp but not all get serps ...... serps is the name that has stuck but the money is an extra amount of IB paid BASED on serps payments in 2 selected years before you became sick ..... its a throw back to days when IB AND unemployment benefit was based on earnings
That does make sense and is ringing bells now. In fact wasn't it under the old IVB? (Invalidity benefit - which preceded IB.) The 2 selected years would have been the 2 full Income Tax years immediately prior to the IVB/IB claim.
IVB rules no longer exist, but there was some transitional protection for people who changed from it onto IB, including the age related additions. Those additions also start to disappear now with ESA, as payments overall begin to level out ready for Universal Credit.
But the 'based on earnings' part of IB and UB etc was always basically the same principal as JSA and ESA are now - that Contribution Based payments depend on full NI contributions having been made during those 2 most recent Income Tax years. The amount of earnings has never - as far as I'm aware - affected the amount of conts based benefit.
All the same this situation with SERPS and IB does need more research.
The name of my IB has changed so many times since I first claimed
IVB IB ESA and I am sure it had another name before IVB ? The biggest change is in having medicals over all them years only reviewed once and before next review cam up I became PCA exempt (old name for medical) on the grounds of now being blind
mercmac - I've gone back as far as I can to the rules in 2003/4 relating to IB and SERPS (earnings related pension scheme.) Rules for SERPS were subject to major changes from April 2002. As of April 2003 the following rule was applied -
'If you were receiving Invalidity Benefit immediately before it was abolished.... and were receiving an earnings related addition to your basic invalidity pension.... you will continue to receive the same amount as an addition to your IB. However, unlike the rest of your IB, this earnings related component will not be uprated for inflation each year and it's value will diminish over time.'
In other words the SERPS addition was phased out after the change from IVB to IB. There is more on this and it is quite complex. IB itself was complex, with age additions, dependant additions, as well as 3 levels of payment according to length of claim. I can't find anything to suggest that ex servicemen were treated any differently, but there are always the 'buts.'
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