Pension Credit

Mr. Waterson
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will make an estimate of the weekly pension credit entitlement to the nearest whole pound of an individual retiring at age 68 in (a) 2028, (b) 2038, (c) 2048 and (d) 2058 with a full basic state pension but no other pension saving.

Ms Rosie Winterton
In 2028, the state pension age will be 66, in 2038 it will be 67 and in 2048 and 2058 it will be 68.

The vast majority of individuals with a full basic state pension retiring at the state pension age will also accrue some additional pension.

A median earner in all these scenarios, retiring at the state pension age, would get around £160 per week in state pension (including additional pension), in real weekly earnings terms. This represents just over a third of the income they received during their working life. In each of these cases, they would be ineligible for pension credit.

Note:

The example given assumes a median earner, working from 25 years of age to state pension age with no other income from saving.

Mr. Waterson
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many and what proportion of pension credit applications were processed within (a) 15 days, (b) 20 days and (c) 30 days in each year since 2005.

Ms Rosie Winterton
We are unable to provide the level of detail requested. However, the following table details the average actual clearance times (AACT) for pension credit, each year since 2005, along with the percentage of total applications this represents.

The AACT is calculated by dividing the total number of working days taken to clear cases by the total number of cases cleared.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                                             |2005-06|2006-07|2007-08|February YTD1 2008-09|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|AACT2 target (Days)                                                                          |10     |10     |15     |15                   |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Total processed (Number)                                                                     |427,748|334,501|280,097|269,119              |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Percentage processed within target                                                           |88     |80     |70     |72                   |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|AACT (Days)                                                                                  |8.8    |11.9   |15.6   |14.9                 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|1 YTD—Year to date.2 AACT—Actual average clearance time.Source:Pension Service Legacy System.|       |       |       |                     |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------