But when all’s said on done, never let it be said that this government are unfeeling bureaucratic monsters. Take a look at this press release from the Commission for Rural Communities’ website, calling for pensioners to be helped to get their pension credit.

We’re encouraging organisations in rural communities to work with us to ensure that people in rural areas are aware of their entitlement. Increased take-up of benefits could reduce pensioner poverty dramatically.

A laudable enterprise. Look out though, there’s trouble in paradise. Here’s a comment on the bottom of the press release:

In the area where I live people have died waiting for a visit from the Pension Service because they are so far behind with their work. The Pension Service will not however allocate “their” work to other partner organisations with whom they work to help speed things up - yet it isn’t hard to do a Pension Credit claim. Is more joint working the answer?

Here’s the reply:

Thanks for your comment. The situation you’ve described is tragic - perhaps your suggestion is a good approach. We’ll pass your comments on to our policy teams.

Now that’s how you deal with pensioner poverty. Can’t you see the policy teams leaping in to action? Don’t you wonder if they have costumes and a theme tune. Pol-icy, pol-icy, reviewing pensioner pov-ert-y. If you were old, poor and living in a rural community, wouldn’t you be sleeping a little easier tonight?

The situation you’ve described is tragic.