Qualitative Evaluation of the Pension Credit Payment Study
About the study
In order to tackle the problem of pensioners not claiming their Pension Credit, and struggling financially, this pilot scheme automatically paid the credit into participants' accounts to see if this encouraged them to make a claim once the payments stopped.
Significant barriers to making the claim uncovered by our evaluation included:
- participants thinking they weren't entitled to the money;
- negative experiences of claiming Pension Credit or other benefits in the past;
- concerns about getting involved in a complicated claims process.
Potential policy impact
Our findings will have implications both for any further development of policy relating to the Pension Credit payments specifically, other automated benefit payments, and administration of means-tested benefits.
Method
The study involved depth interviews with a purposive sample of 40 individuals who had received payments of Pension Credit under the trial. The three main sampling criteria were age, current Pension Credit status, and estimated entitlement amount.
- NatCen Social Research
- 35 Northampton Square, London, EC1V 0AX
- Charity no. 1091768
- info@natcen.ac.uk
