News & Events 28 February 2023
Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion visits Citizens Advice Lewisham
Citizens Advice policy team and Citizens Advice Lewisham (led by CEO Fiona Derbyshire who chairs the London Citizens Advice Steering Group) met with the Minister to discuss Pension Credit issues.
The Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion, Guy Opperman visited Citizens Advice Lewisham (CAL) on 21st February to meet with staff and volunteers, including Chief Executive Officer, Fiona Derbyshire.
Accompanied by Morgan Wild, Head of Policy at Citizens Advice, and Matt Byrne, Senior Campaigns and Public Affairs Officer at Citizens Advice, the Minister’s visit was to discuss improvements around the communication of Pension Credits following concerns around the low take-up of the benefit. Introduced in 2003, Pension Credits provides financial support with living costs for those over State Pension age and on a low income.
Fiona Derbyshire, Chief Executive of Citizens Advice Lewisham (CAL) and Chair of the London Citizens Advice Steering Group said:-
“CAL was able to host the Minister for Pensions, Guy Opperman today who wanted to talk about Pension Credit take-up in CAL clients. It was a lively conversation where we said that take-up was limited, likely due to digital challenges in accessing and completing the application for older clients. We proposed help to claim type service to support older clients in working through the application, ideally face to face, and the Minister challenged us to host an older peoples event to explore barriers to applying