British Pensions Dept.
Once upon a time - and this is no fairy story - albeit it is still Grimm - when we returned to the U.K. for a vacation we held on to our Travel documents, boarding passes etc. Then when we returned home we would send all these to HQ Newcastle in order to claim our "Due Entitlement" of pension for the period in the U.K. They made no bones about the "Due Entitlement" - which is sadly lacking on a monthly basis as we live in the old Colony of Canada.
The powers that be in Newcastle, no doubt owing to a rush of blood to the head of the newest Empire Builder to sit in the top seat, then decreed that the system must change as it appears to work satisfactory which would never do !We now had to submit our travel details for the outward journey immediately on arrival in the U.K. - and the other documents on returning home. This of course had the effect of doubling our work - and the work of the staff in Newcastle which was the object of the exercise as they could now increase the Empire by probably 50%, at least.
This still allowed us to gain the extra remittance within a two monthe period of returning, which obviously upset the Chancellor and his staff at the Treasury and so a newer system had to be devised.
WE now have a three page instruction document which asks us to "tell us something about yourself" followed by a whole load of goobledegook which they should have already on file since we have been drawing less than our "Due Entitlement" for many years. We then must fill up page two prior to landing in the U.K.- saving page three until we decide to take another vacation, at which time we must fill this also and send it off to Newcastle !
This looks fairly straightforward until you pull the file on this case and see that your first application for "Due Entitlement" was made on the 20th October 2006 by airmail it probably hit their mail room by the 27th October....this three page instruction arrived to-day - 8th December... if we send it off to-morrow by air it will probably hit their mail room by - say
20th December owing to the bulk of mail at this Christmas period..."oops too late to do anything this year as we have to think about the Christams Hols" ... and so I shall tell our Bank Manager that the expected cheque for Veronica's "Due Entitlement"
for her vacation in the U.K. in September / October 2006 should be deposited by the end of February 2007...at which point the GB pound will have had time to revert to it's lowly place on the currency exchange !
Somehow I just can't wait for the EU at Strasbourg getting their teeth into Tony Blairs rear on the Human Rights Violations which have been affecting all British pensioners living in the old "Colonies" !The U.K. Government have declined the oportunity to "settle" out of court and are demanding a fullscale trial - no doubt as a last kick at a delaying tactic !
The powers that be in Newcastle, no doubt owing to a rush of blood to the head of the newest Empire Builder to sit in the top seat, then decreed that the system must change as it appears to work satisfactory which would never do !We now had to submit our travel details for the outward journey immediately on arrival in the U.K. - and the other documents on returning home. This of course had the effect of doubling our work - and the work of the staff in Newcastle which was the object of the exercise as they could now increase the Empire by probably 50%, at least.
This still allowed us to gain the extra remittance within a two monthe period of returning, which obviously upset the Chancellor and his staff at the Treasury and so a newer system had to be devised.
WE now have a three page instruction document which asks us to "tell us something about yourself" followed by a whole load of goobledegook which they should have already on file since we have been drawing less than our "Due Entitlement" for many years. We then must fill up page two prior to landing in the U.K.- saving page three until we decide to take another vacation, at which time we must fill this also and send it off to Newcastle !
This looks fairly straightforward until you pull the file on this case and see that your first application for "Due Entitlement" was made on the 20th October 2006 by airmail it probably hit their mail room by the 27th October....this three page instruction arrived to-day - 8th December... if we send it off to-morrow by air it will probably hit their mail room by - say
20th December owing to the bulk of mail at this Christmas period..."oops too late to do anything this year as we have to think about the Christams Hols" ... and so I shall tell our Bank Manager that the expected cheque for Veronica's "Due Entitlement"
for her vacation in the U.K. in September / October 2006 should be deposited by the end of February 2007...at which point the GB pound will have had time to revert to it's lowly place on the currency exchange !
Somehow I just can't wait for the EU at Strasbourg getting their teeth into Tony Blairs rear on the Human Rights Violations which have been affecting all British pensioners living in the old "Colonies" !The U.K. Government have declined the oportunity to "settle" out of court and are demanding a fullscale trial - no doubt as a last kick at a delaying tactic !
posted by Tomcann at 11:05 pm
3 Comments:
Hi Tom ! It is me your erstwhile compatriot in Pickering. I have finally managed to retrieve data that I lost when I got a new computer and located Ron's address, so I am back.
Re your story about British Pensions,and can understand your frustration in dealing with bureaucracy.
I also have a little tale to tell about the UK pension. Quite a while back when this problem of not receiving indexed pensions from the UK was raised by a group of ex-pats living in Canada I decided to write a letter to Winston Churchill MP (The Younger)who I found out was concerned about this inequity, and had a very nice reply from him stating that he was going to raise this matter in parliament regarding the indexing of pensions for British seniors living in Canada.
He said he could see no reason why British pensioners living in the U S of A should receive them but not those living in Canada. Apparently the Canadian authorities were more than willng to enter into some agreement with the UK over this, but the powers that be there, kept on stalling with all sort of excuses such as "It would bankrupt the country."
Anyway he did try but he couldn't get neccessary time to put the motion, as it is said. "On the table". So I think that was the end of the matter.
It is very annoying to know that if I went to live in the States I would be entitled to a full pension.
If all of us returned to the UK to live I think it would impose a greater burden on the country because our using the health system and all the other benefits we would be entitled to.
Why Canada was left out of the scheme I cannot understand, I know there is a sizable population here from the UK, but I understand that there is a similar large group in the U.S Canada I beleive is the only country that does not have a pension agreement with Britain
Footslogger - firstly - welcome back - glad to know you are still suffering by living in Pickering !!!We lived for a time in Don Mills !
Yes you are right about Churchill the younger - unfortunately he retired and so it was left on the table - with no heroes to pick up the gauntlet - regards bankrupting the country IF they ever get around to paying us our "Due Entitlement" - it would only cost them 300GBP million per annum to bring us up to scale - no pack pay - nothing just scale ! They conveniently forget that the illegals cost them 1.5GBP billion and there is some 33GBP billion in the reserve pension fund - so it's all Bovine Scatology.
However we are not alone as the pensioners in Australia - NZ - Zimbabwe - Sth Africa et al were also treated in the same way.At the end of the war Attlee and his merry men decided on a wheeze that would save money - so they came over to Canada and said " we shall be sending many Brits to fill your many acres and so when it comes pension time - you can look after them if they run into trouble - Right -?"
so Mackenzie King said " oh yes sir three bags full sir - standing to attention at the time"
Attlee thought that went well and so pulled the same stunt all around the old Colonies - then he said " we'll try it on the Yanks" - they did and were told to get lost in no uncertain terms.
We have been fighting ever since and in the past two years we had another case of a Sth African pensioner bring a Law Suit against HM Govt - and of course we lost - all the way up to the Law Lords by 2-1 !
NOW - having been all the way up the line - we can now go to the European Union who have a great record in Human Rights and feel we have a good chance - so they approached Tony Blair and his henchmen to settle "out of court" but old big head said they will try their luck with a court case - this will come up in June 2007 - so you could be looking at an increase in your pension by the end of 2007 - or for as long as they can delay paying it out !
No doubt they will send it via the Phillipines as always !
Cheers
Further to my last posting regarding the tardiness of the Newcastle Pensions dept - I now record the fact that this is now the 21st February and we still await the cheques of our due entitlement applied for on the 20th October - so four months breaks some kind of record - even for Newcastle !
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