State pensioners eligible for Winter Fuel Allowance 'face four year wait for payment'

Thousands of pensioners face waiting up to four years before getting Winter Fuel Payments. Since the plans to cut Winter Fuel Allowances for all but the poorest pensioners were announced, take up for Pension Credit has doubled.

The rise has taken place in these past five weeks, but new freedom of information data from the DWP shows that a third of applicants have been denied. If all of the 880,000 pensioners who are eligible apply, the Treasury would face a tax bill of £3.8billion, a report by Policy in Practice found.

Assuming that the higher level of applications continues – an extra 3,700 claims a week – this would represent an extra 200,000 pensioners applying each year. Sir Steve Webb, former pensions minister and partner at LCP said: "If we have 880,000 entitled people not claiming, then you’d need to keep going for (more than) four years to clear all the non-take-up problem."

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He added: "In reality, once the ‘caravan moves on’, and Pension Credit drops out of the news, this surge in claims will fall back – just as it did when the BBC restricted free TV licences to the over-75s only on pension credit." A DWP spokesman said: "The number of applications for Pension Credit has more than doubled since the announcement in July but we know there is more to do which is why we have launched a campaign to boost uptake and awareness.

"We have surged additional staff to cover increasing Pension Credit calls and urge anyone who thinks they may be entitled to pension credit to check now." Li Kendall said: "We have written to all local authorities to ask them to identify eligible pensioners, including by sharing data.

"We are joining forces with Age UK and Citizens Advice to get to make sure pensioners check and apply. We have launched a major awareness campaign, continuing right up until the deadline to apply on December 21 – and, yes, that will be backdated by three months – backed by 450 extra staff to ensure claims are processed as quickly as possible.

"The deputy prime minister is working with housing associations and supported accommodation providers so their residents know what they are entitled to. I am working with the health secretary to ensure frontline NHS staff can signpost older patients who may be house-bound because of disabilities and chronic conditions.

"And for the very first time, we are writing to all pensioners on housing benefits who are potentially eligible to encourage them to claim – something the Conservatives never did. And, in the longer term, because the only way to guarantee uptake is to make the whole process more automated, we will bring forward the merger of housing benefit and pension credit, which members opposite never did."