I have been directed here by HB13. Thanks.

We are having a bit of a hassle with my wife's occupational pension. Up to a week ago my wife received SSP but that has stopped so no income from her employer however she shoudl be on ESA.

Up to now her pension was deducted from her SSP but obviously that cannot happen now.

We have tried to pay a lump sum (4 weeks) up front but require a receipt for the DWP so that our benfits can be adjusted. Employer says that they cannot accept a payment fro various reasons. Pension company state it needs to come from employer so in a catch 22 situation. We do not want the policy to lapse through no payment.

Employer has stated that they will continue to pay their contribution but this premium is directly related to the amount my wife pays in every month so this has left us very puzzled. We also have had an issue with the financial advisor that was suippose to be helping us but that will be on anothe thread.

Hello surfer01. Can you tell me what kind of pension this is please? It's sounding like a group personal pension, but I could be wrong.

Sorry, I said you might end up with me.

My best, HB

Occupational pension or group personal pension. I think they are basically both the same. Pension is with Standard Life.

Sorry, surfer01, they aren't usually the same.

Are you able to tell us what Standard Life [who are usually a good company] said to you about why they didn't want to accept contributions from the employer?

Sometimes an employee can take over a policy like a GPP but not an occupational scheme. It depends what type it is.

Can you tell us more please?

HB

Standard Life said it needs to be done through the payroll office so that the contribution does nto get lost. Real quandry over this one as the wife does not want the pension to lapse.

Standard Life said it needs to be done through the payroll office so that the contribution does nto get lost. Real quandry over this one as the wife does not want the pension to lapse.

I understand you don't want the pension to be lost. If it's with Standard Life, it may not be an occupational one, but it could still be employer sponsored. I don't want to bore you with the rules, but pensions are riddled with them. Have Standard Life told you the best way not to let the pension lapse?

Maybe if you wanted to tell me the name of the pension scheme [without the employer's name if that's part of the title] I can have a look online and find out what it is.

HB

PM sent with more details. Hopefully that info will give you more info on how to keep up the group plan. I think the HR department in the company are being difficult, but not sure how to approach it so that payments are kept up to date.

Hi surfer, I've replied. You're in a complicated area of pensions and HR may not totally understand. Do they have an independent adviser helping them at all?

HB

Thanks got it and replied. We had a financial adviser appointed by GMB but the toad sat on our documents since early march and we only got them back yesterday despite numerous phone calls. Guess what, no advice given and not so much as even a covering note. I am not sure if the HR department have a permanent adviser or one appointed by SL but will try and find out tomorrow..

The company owes my spouse about three weeks vacation and there is no ways my spouse will be able to use this vacation time it so they have decided in their infinite wisdom that they will use this to pay her portion of the pension subscription. There would be enough to cover her contribution for another 26 weeks. We have no objection to this as it seems a good idea and we don't have to travel to pay them or have cheques floating around when you are trying to mange your finances on a low income, but we have concerns regarding our current benefits.

As an example lets assume that her pension contribution payment should be £25 per week. However as she is on ESA and I am on Pension credit, we are not sure how this may impact our benefits and whether it would be classed as income. I am under the assumption that DWP class half of this pension contribution as income.

We certainly do not want to fall foul of DWP regs and be tagged as benefit cheats and hit with a repayment sum of £12 x 26 weeks. The wife should be getting wage slips showing an income payment of £25 and then the deduction payment of the same amount which in effect is an income of £12.50 for DWP purposes. This may be one for Erika but I am not sure how to flag it up for her attention

Hi Surfer. This is getting into complicated maths and it's not my forte. You could post on the benefits forum and give a link to this thread, or you could give Erika the title of it and ask her to have a look.

HB

I am not sure how to bring it to the attention of Erika.

OK, I'll post on the Benefits forum for you.

HB

Surfer, I've started a thread for you back on Benefits, with a link to this thread. Hope that's OK.

HB

Thanks HB13

If her employer owes her this money for annual leave she arranges with them for it to be used toward her occupational pension instead, any claim to income based benefit will likely be treated as if she has the money, and the benefit claim reduced accordingly - if the benefit claim is income based. For ESA, Antone would be the best person to advise on this aspect.

If the ESA claim is contribution based, this shouldn't affect it.

Sorry, I clicked through on this thread a few days ago and then didn't actually have the time to post.

I'm afraid I genuinely don't know the answer to this one (it's quite unusual), and I no longer have access to the JCP guidance to figure it out, which is what I would normally have done when I worked there. Erika is correct that contribution based ESA wouldn't be affected by this, but if Mrs Surfer01 gets income related ESA it could be an issue.

If you haven't yet had a satisfactory answer to this question, there are a few people I could ask for advice - DMs who currently work there. Please let me know and I'll send an email or two.

Thanks Antone. As she is still technically employed I woudl think that she would be receiving contribution based ESA. We can find all the answers if you are unemployed but not for circumstances where you go from SSP to ESA but are still employed..

Apologies for the long winded post but we are very stressed and worried. I am on Pension credit and my wife is on ESA Higher rate due to ATOS medical and being now unemployed. On each change of circumstances we have contacted the Pension Service in writing to update them. Our last correspondence was to advise them that my wife's employment had been terminated on 20th May 2011 as she had been off on the sick for over a year.

We then received a letter in June from the Pension Service requesting my wife's payslips. I then phoned the Pension Service and advised them verbally that my wife was no longer employed therefore payslips were not available and had not been available for several months. This was accepted.

We then got a long letter from them showing a breakdown of my Pension Credit payments and this indicated that I had been underpaid for about 4 months. The letter was dated 6th July and received on 15th July 2011, but in the meantime £727 had been deposited into my account. At first I assumed this was arrears plus one weeks normal payment. Then I received a letter advising that they had paid in 6 weeks in advance my Pension Credit. All it stated on the letter was that a payment would be made into my bank for the period 7th July until 17th August, no other explanation.

When no pension credit was paid in on the 20th July I queried it again with the Pension Service and was told that there had been a clerical error, but the money was an arrears payment. I then tried to work it out but the arrears was less than £400 and the figures did not gel so I phoned them back on 21st and 22nd to be told on both occasions that it was arrears money.

I phoned again today and initially was told it was arrears money, but when I was insistent on a breakdown I was told that I had been paid my pension 6 weeks in advance, but at a lower rate than I was entitled to due to the clerical error. As this had me quite concerned, I then used http://www.entitledto.co.uk to see what sort of figures came up and it seems that although we had supplied all the correct information in writing they may have miscalculated and they had been overpaying me by about £30 per week for six weeks and then by £21 for the period 7th July until 17th August.

We cannot afford not to have any weekly income at all after the 17th August as we have not budgeted beyond that period. I appreciate that the "entitledto" calculator could be slightly out, but not by much.

We are convinced that we have done everything correctly and that they have made the mistake as on several occasions when phoning the Pension service they have admitted making a clerical error. Can they still penalise us if they have made an "official mistake" or error? I know they can't on Housing and council Tax but not sure about Pension Credits. Thanks.

Any one?

I have been receiving PC for awhile with adjustment for wife being on ESA etc. When wife stopped claiming we notified them of a change of circumtances for my pension to be upped. The PC was increased, but they never took into consideration that my wife was entitled to carer's allowance, but not in payment. Again we notified them and they paid us arrears.

However a week later we got what we thought was an arrears payment and basically spent it. The following week in addition to my regular PC payment which was on a Wednesday, on the Thursday we had another payment of £212. We then contacted the DWP Pensions to query this and they were unable to explain the extra payment, but said they would look into it.

The following week we had another payment for £212 and by this time we were quite worried so contacted DWP again to query it and again they were unable to tell us why we were getting the extra amount. By this time the additional amounts paid had amounted to over £636.

When discussing the issue with the rep from the DWP I noticed that the amount was exactly the same amount that was paid to me as pension when they had not taken into account my wife's carer's allowance. We were the ones notifying the DWP and also asking them to stop paying us the extra money as we now felt we were not entitled to it, but the answer was that as they did not know, they could not stop the payments!

It now seems that one department is paying us Pension Credit on the Wednesday and another is paying us Pension credit on the Thursday. We have always been paid PC on the Wednesday which is why we thought it was an arrears payment initially when we received a payment on the Thursday.

We have held onto some of the money, but are now concerned that when they discover their mistake, they will be clawing back the overpayment at a rate we cannot afford even though they had made an "official mistake"! Also it is very difficult controlling the temptation to spend it on something useful as the first lot we spent at the vet sorting out our cat.

Not sure what more we can do or what we should do.

We are on Pension credit and receive £237 per week for the both of us which also takes into account two small private pension payments and a carer's allowance. However in addition the DWP pay us another £212 for some unknown reason?

Over the past 5 weeks since the DWP started paying us this extra £212 per week we have phoned in and queried it as we feel we are not entitled to the money. Every week they tell us that we are entitled to the benefit, but cannot explain why we are entitled to the money. It is not a housing and council tax payment as that would be a lot less anyway.

We never applied for any other benefit at any time. We have also written to the DWP querying the payment, but it still gets paid into our account and they have sent us nothing in writing.

Initially we thought we were entitled to the money and spent it as there were some arrears owed to us by the DWP, however over the past 4 weeks we have now being putting it aside. It is becoming difficult to manage as it all goes into the same account as the Pension Credit and DLA.

We are scared of spending it just in case they demand it all back again which will leave us short every week. Can any one advise what we should do as this seems to be an official mistake that no one at the DWP wants to rectify? Thanks.

does it come with your usual money, or is it paid in seperately?

Did you ever get a letter stating "we're paying you £xxx.xx every 2 weeks" (or however often you get paid) and then a page explain why you get this amount?

does it come with your usual money, or is it paid in seperately?

Pension credit is paid on Wednesday and the £212 is paid weekly on the Thursday. We have never received any letter stating why we are being paid the amount despite requesting the reason by phone and also in writing.

Luckily we have proof of this as one letter was sent by registered mail and the other by normal mail. The phone calls have been logged as when I phone and query it, I get the reply that they can see the notes from the previous week etc.