Complaints Board rejects £6,500 pension claim

Thursday 20 December 2018

The States Complaints Board have rejected a complaint made by a retired Jersey woman who missed out on £6,500 of her pension pot because she wasn't aware when she could claim it.

Elaine Huggett had registered with the Social Security Department before 1 January 1975 and was therefore entitled to claim her pension at 60 - but she was unaware of that, and made her claim nearly two years after.

She had requested a pension forecast in 2014, and was told she would be entitled to a pension at 60 and how much she would receive.

However, at around the same time, changes were made to the pension age, so Mrs Huggett checked the pension calculator on the gov.je website. This showed she would only be entitled to her pension at 65 years and two months.

Mrs Huggett said she did not notice anything on the website to indicate that women who had registered with the Department before 1 January 1975 could claim their pension at 60.

Pictured: Mrs Huggett thought her pension was only due when she reached 65 years and two months.

In 2017, Mrs Huggett learned through a friend of the same age that she had become eligible for her person nearly two years before. She went to the Social Security Department and then made a claim in writing for her pension. 

Mrs Huggett appeared in front of the Complaints Board, an independent panel tasked with investigating unresolved grievances with departments, in November to complain that the Department had only backdated her claim for six months. She argued that she was entitled to the money that had been paid in by her former husband, which she believed would have resulted in her receiving an additional £6,500. 

“After you worked all your life… I gave the island a lot, now I’m being told I can’t have my pension… It’s just wrong," she told the Board's Deputy Chairman, Chris Beirne, who was sitting with David McGrath and Gavin Fraser.

Pictured: The States were encouraged to make information about pension easier to find on their site.

The Board said they couldn't uphold her complaint because the law says the maximum period for which a pension could be backdated was six months. They also said the Department hadn't acted in a discriminatory way towards Mrs. Huggett by not contacting her when her pension was due, because it was not required to do so.

But they made a series of recommendations to the Social Security Department to make sure the same situation doesn't arise in the future. One of those was to take “a more active role in providing information to alert people to the date from which they can claim their pension" and to make the information about women in a similar position to Mrs. Huggett easier to locate on the States website.

Mr Beirne said: “We recommend that this matter should be addressed. As only a few hundred women are in the same situation as Mrs. Huggett and their pension age is unaffected by subsequent changes in legislation, the Department should take active measures to ensure they are aware of the position.”

Pictured: The Complaints Board urged the Social Security Minister, Judy Martin, to consider whether a limit of six months on backdated pension payments was fair.

The Board also recommended that the Department be more explicit about the fact people might lose money if they fail to claim a pension within three months of reaching the relevant age. They urged the Department to be clearer about the age from which people can claim their pension and the implications of not doing so in the letters they send. They said that because the Department currently places the onus on individuals to take action, this could be problematic for some people.

The Board also said that while the six-month restriction on backdated payments might reflect what other jurisdictions do, the Minister, Deputy Judy Martin, should determine how fair that rule is.

While not able to uphold her complaint, Mr Beirne commended Mrs Huggett for raising awareness of the situation. “The Board will be extremely disappointed if other people, who would have been entitled to claim their pension, but were not aware of the fact, appear before it in the future," he said.