What other help is available for pensioners?

workSMART is aimed at people at work so this is not a comprehensive guide for today's pensioners. Our aim is to give people who are still working some idea of what benefits and support may be available when they retire.

Of course, what is available today may not be available tomorrow. Governments can change their policies, and if there's a change of government then there may well be major changes.

Most pensioners:

• can get an annual winter fuel allowance
• can claim Pension Credit to take their income to a minimum income guarantee level. For more click this link.

Pensions Credit has undoubtedly helped many poor pensioners, and it was a way of targetting extra spending on the most needy quite quickly.

But there are two problems with such means tested benefits. Firstly people have to claim them – and that inevitably can be a complicated process despite the best intentions of government.

Secondly means-tested benefits can be unfair to those who have income or savings just above the means test level. People who have scrimped and saved to build up some savings or a small pension can find themselves only a very little better off than people who made no such efforts and who can now claim the full means-tested benefit. Therefore, some say that it's not worth saving for retirement if you can only afford to put a little away into a pension.

Pensioner tax credits are a genuine attempt to deal with this second problem, but of course they make the system more complicated again.

Benefits for poorer pensioners have become more generous in recent years. This is clearly welcome, but it makes pension planning more difficult for those who do not have the resources to build up sizeable pensions.

For more information about state help for pensioners look at the Pension Service website.