Christmas and a Pension

Christmas has come early this year, for me anyway. Santa has taken the unfamiliar guise of a buff letter from Her Majesty’s Department of Work and Pensions. “We have decided that you are entitled to a UK State Pension”.

Now there’s a lot in that sentence. That “we” (no I don’t think it’s the Royal we) suggests discussion and debate, not just ticks in boxes. The “decided” adds weight to that idea, with the extra thought that there was an alternative, presumably containing the word “not”. Then comes “entitled”, a real teaser that one, “you are entitled to a refund, but we aren’t giving one”, “you are entitled to a free a bag of chips with every large fish”.

I think that the key thing here is that, although popular perception is different, getting a pension from the state as a UK citizen is not a right, it has to be earned, by paying National Insurance contributions for thirty years to get the full benefit. And then by filling in a twenty page form listing, amongst other things, the current addresses of all the payroll departments of all the companies that you’ve ever worked for. Actually I gave up on the first company I ever worked for, as it had been the object of a hostile takeover and then broken up in 1992. It didn’t seem to matter.

Which brings me to another little thought – that form took some constructing with great attention to detail and the kind of questions that need to be preceded by a drum role and serious voice intoning “you have three days to answer questions on your specialist subject – your personal history since the age of sixteen”. Since I got most of the answers to the difficult ones through talking to HM Pensions, perhaps someone should be giving some thought to what can be removed from the twenty page form and so save the odd tree or two from the reduced printing – oh! yes I forgot to mention that the form has to be completed with pen and ink, none of your electronic stuff.

Please don’t get me wrong, I’m delighted with some extra cash, particularly as, in accord with family tradition, we’ve already spent it about three times over and before the first payment has actually been made.

And where has all the yet-to-be-paid-money gone? Well on preparations for Christmas of course. Just as well Santa arrived early.