Winter Fuel Allowance : should it be donated to charity?

The Winter Fuel Allowance has been a controversial topic recently, with suggestions that those who don't need the payment should be able to donate it. Gransnetters have had plenty to say about this.

One idea, from an organisation called Fuel Our Youth, is that payments should be donated to unemployed young people.

Another, from Surviving Winter, is that those who are comfortably off should donate their Winter Fuel Allowance to elderly people who are really struggling. 

A report in August 2011 from the independent and respected Institute for Fiscal Studies found that - to their admitted surprise - households receiving the Winter Fuel Allowance spent more money on fuel. The Winter Fuel Allowance is thought to have a powerful psychological effect in encouraging older people to keep warm: households receiving the payment were 14 times more likely to spend it on fuel than if they had received the money in a different way.

Some commentators have called for the money to be means-tested, although means-testing is expensive for the government. The oldest old do already receive more. There are concerns too that means-testing would mean many of the most deserving would miss out. The Citizens Advice Bureaux and others have demonstrated that older people often under claim the benefits they are entitled to, for a variety of reasons: 

• older people feel that they do not wish to 'trouble' anyone
• they feel they are already 'getting by'
• the complexity of the benefit system

Pensioners aged over 80 received £400 last year, but this has been cut to £300 this year. Those aged under 80 received £250 last year and will receive £200 this year.

What gransnetters think

The general feeling is that while some people can donate their Winter Fuel Allowance and are delighted to do so, this question doesn't come up with other benefits and is part of a wider attack on older people. In a society increasingly of haves and have-nots, why are older people attacked as the "haves" when they have so much less than bankers or CEOs earning 250 times their employees? 

I am spitting feathers here on behalf of all the people who receive Winter Fuel Allowance being asked from a charity to donate their allowance to the young unemployed!...When are the big fat bankers going to be asked to donate some of their big fat bonus to the young unemployed? glassortwo

We need our Winter Fuel Allowance, we would not be able to pay our heating bills without it. Why is it assumed only the young are struggling at this time? It is hard for most of us at the moment. Take away the Winter Fuel Allowance and we will go back to the elderly dying of hypothermia as they will not put the heating on because of the fear of not being able to pay the bills. Annika

I don't recall going to my parents to ask for money to pay the bills. We worked, we struggled and if we could not afford we did without. I never had central heating and if there was no money to buy coal we did without. The young are more able to withstand the cold than us pensioners. The very sad thing is that some pensioners will actually believe they are less deserving and give up the allowance. harrigran

I suggested last year that DH and I give our allowance to Age UK or where it would be used to help older people who need it more than we do. I am very conscious of how lucky we are, (but also of the hours we worked in the public sector to get here!) and of people of our age who desperately need help. We didn't get round to it, but we will this year. Ariadne

I donated mine last year so my daughter, who is struggling to bring up her two children on her own, could pay her electricity bill. It is the constant instructions by others on how to run our lives that I object to, not giving to charity. Goldengran

Means testing is an expensive and inefficient system. Furthermore, there are lots of pensioners who are entitled to means tested benefits but do not claim them. Maybe they are too proud, maybe they don't realise that they are entitled or maybe the forms are so complicated (they often are huge and difficult to follow) that they have just given up. absentgrana

We do give our Winter Fuel Allowance to our son, wife and two children, who both work but still earn less than a same size family across the road living on benefits, who would be the unemployed we should donate to. camsen

I am surprised that no one has actually mentioned the cause of the problem, because the not so well off have to pay as they go they have to pay much more for their gas and electricity. The utility companies tell us that because it is so expensive to run these systems they have to charge a much higher tariff. In addition, the payment cards must be purchased from local newsagents etc and they would also not be doing this for nothing, they would be taking their cut. 20% would be a conservative estimate of the extra they must pay, if you take this as an average of the yearly fuel bill then an amount of over £200 raises its ugly head. ronald

I am going to half-nelson the next person who tells me I am not entitled because I am a drain on society! carosanto

See the original discussion about Winter Fuel Allowance.

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Original images: Shutterstock