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Devon Pensioners’ Action Forum

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DPAF is your local organisation committed to making a real difference.

Hands off Our Money - View Letter Here

Article from The Times 18/06/11 Here

AGM 2012 + A Message from Bob Turner in Response to this Letter to the IsitFair Website from Albert Venison

“I am sorry to have to tell you that it was agreed at the AGM on Saturday 19th May, that DPAF should close down. No-one was prepared to try and run it and so in the absence of being able to form an Executive Committee. this was the outcome. A chap called Bob Price was elected to carry out the winding up process and he is in the throes of doing just that. You may have seen some of the nonsense appearing on the web site and I feel that this nonsensical attack on myself, Colin Hadley and Michael Rose may have been instrumental in the vote for winding up. The viciousness continued at the AGM and so it was the best thing in the end. Over 12 years hard work destroyed in just 5 months. Could you please therefore delete any reference to DPAF on your web site
On a personal note I hope you are both keeping well. We drift on from day to day wondering where it is all going to end!!!.
All the best to all”
Albert.

The Jackboot Mentality Lives On

“No-one else was prepared to try and run it”, comments Albert above. His hypocrisy continues and, to add insult to injury, he is also attempting to claim £456 in unauthorised expenses he incurred in various mail shots he distributed to discredit the Executive Committee in general and me specifically.

    

I would like to apologise to all concerned for my absence from the AGM on Saturday, 19th May.  Unfortunately I suffered a heart attack on the Friday evening prior to the meeting and was admitted to the Royal Devon & Exeter hospital for treatment.  This was doubly unfortunate in that I was at the time preparing final paperwork for presentation by the Executive Committee at the AGM outlining our plans for the next 12 months.  Under the circumstances this information was unavailable to the other members of the Executive Committee, the majority of it being on my laptop computer and therefore inaccessible by anyone else.

Reports have been passed to me regarding the disgraceful behaviour of Albert Venison, some of which occurred prior to the meeting start time of 10am.  Some members of the Executive Committee were subjected to harassment, intimidation and bullying to such a degree that they felt threatened and unable to take part in the AGM proceedings, including the longest serving member of the Committee. Albert should feel ashamed of himself but, of course, the clear aim was to reduce or eliminate any possible opposition to his own self-serving objective of closing down the Devon Pensioners Action Forum.  It was perhaps fortunate under the circumstances that the new Secretary and Membership Secretary were also unable to attend the AGM, the former recovering from surgery and the latter dealing with a family bereavement.

Albert Venison’s much vaunted comment, “No-one can have the interests of DPAF more at heart than I have”, takes on a somewhat hollow ring in view of what followed and his actions supported by some of the other attendees. Albert Venison continued in his spoilt brat mode whereby it was his ball and if nobody wanted to play by his rules then he would skulk away with his ball and nobody would be allowed to play.

There followed a meaningless proposal and acceptance that DPAF should be dissolved and a Winding Up/Dissolution Committee was formed from those present resulting in the ‘election’ of Bob Price (Chairman), Bernard Endicott (Vice Chair and National Pensioners Convention - Devon Treasurer) Allan Rigg continued in his role as Treasurer and I was co-opted by virtue of being a co-signatory of DPAF cheques.

There were two meetings of the Dissolution Committee   This Motion for Dissolution is illegal and fails in every respect to follow the procedures as set out in the Constitution that was accepted by the members by a postal ballot.

Dissolution – “Any proposed dissolution of the Devon Pensioners Action Forum must be determined by a meeting called and arranged by the Secretary acting on instructions from the Executive Committee, for this purpose only, and all members must be given the reasons for the proposed Dissolution at least twenty-one days notice by way of newspaper advertisements and / or through the Devon Pensioners Action Forum’s Newsletter. There must be a minimum of twenty-five paid-up Members at this Meeting for any decisions to be acted on, and the Motion will be decided on by a show of hands. If the Dissolution Motion is carried, then all information and details in whatever form, of Members, must be destroyed. The disposal of surplus funds (if any) after paying all debts will be left to the retiring Executive Committee, acting on the instructions of the membership at the meeting called to dissolve the Devon Pensioners Action Forum.

Should this Meeting not approve the proposed Dissolution request, it will then be assumed that the current Executive Committee has resigned en-bloc and new Executive Committee and Officers elected. Retiring Officers and Committee Members would be eligible to be re-elected. The new Executive Committee and Officers must then discuss the future direction of the Devon Pensioners Action Forum, including any changes to the existing Constitution, and ask members present for their support and approval”.

Albert Venison and his associates failed to correctly notify members of a Dissolution Motion in accordance with the required Constitutional procedure, preferring to steamroller through their own incorrect concept of how this matter should be decided.  How desperate they all are to bring about the dissolution of this organisation that they claim to care so much about.

The Executive Committee, not Albert Venison’s hastily cobbled together ‘Gang of Two’, had already agreed, prior to the AGM, to ballot all members to seek their views on the future of DPAF.  Of course, this concept would hold no appeal to those who may find that the majority of members would vote against dissolution if given the opportunity.

I have been contacted by Bob Price who has told me that this website should be ‘cleaned up’ and any negativity, including my letter to Albert Venison, removed. Why, Bob?  My letter to Albert sets out a wide range of issues to which nobody has responded.  It seems that there are those that would prefer to see DPAF fold rather than answer any of the questions raised. Obviously, positive ‘spin’ is the order of the day and, heaven forbid, do not let the facts get in the way!

If you wish to comment we can be contacted here

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'Granny tax' Q&A: Pensioner allowances explained -

The change in allowances will save the Treasury millions of pounds. To Chancellor George Osborne it is a simplification in a complex tax system. To its critics, it is a "granny tax". But what exactly does this controversial measure in mean for you?  

The change in age-related personal allowances - the amount of income that is tax-free - will save the government £1bn by 2015.

It will mean that millions of people will not be as protected from tax as they expected to be - which will affect their financial planning as they approach retirement.

So what is my personal allowance?

A personal allowance is the first chunk of income that anyone earns that is tax-free.

Any amount earned above this level is subject to tax at various bands.

And my tax-free income depends on my age?

Correct. There has been a different level of personal allowance for pensioners since Winston Churchill introduced it in the 1920s.

Tax terms explained

 Taxable income: Includes money earned from employment, self-employment, savings, pensions and shares

 Non-taxable income: You do not pay tax on some benefits or premium-bond winnings

 Personal allowance: The amount you can earn tax-free. From April, it will be £8,105 per person for those under 65, £10,500 for those aged 65 to 74, and £10,660 for those aged 75 and over

So, if you are aged under 65, the first £8,105 of your income will be tax-free from this April. This will change to the first £9,205 in the 2013-14 financial year.

If you are aged 65 to 74, then you get a bit more of an allowance. The first £10,500 is tax-free from April.

If you are aged 75 and over, then the personal allowance is £10,660 from April.

However, this extra allowance is gradually withdrawn from those pensioners with a taxable income of between about £24,000 and about £29,000. So pensioners who earn more than this do not get the extra benefit.

And anyone with an income of more than £100,000 has all their personal allowance gradually withdrawn, regardless of age.

So what will change?

Mr Osborne announced two significant measures in the Budget.

The first is that, while the personal allowance for the under 65s will go up again in April 2013, the allowance for those aged 65 and over will be frozen at the same levels as 2012-13.

Secondly, anyone who turns 65 after 5 April, 2013, will not get an extra allowance at all. They will benefit from the same personal allowance as the under-65s.

Who is most affected?

Most significantly, those who hit 65 just after April 2013 will not get the tax-free allowance they might have expected in subsequent years.

They will get a personal allowance of £9,205. In contrast, someone who turns 65 just before April 2013 will get a personal allowance of £10,500.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) says this will bring an extra 230,000 into the income tax system. For many, this will mean having to fill out a self-assessment tax form every year.

Pensioners with an income of more than about £30,000 will not be affected at all, because they would not have received the extra allowance anyway. They make up about 10% of all pensioners.

People on the basic state pension and pension credit will not earn them enough to pay income tax, so they will be unaffected too. That is about 50% of pensioners.

That means, it is a "middle-income" range of 40% of pensioners who will not get what they might have expected from the tax system.

Their income is likely to be made up of state and workplace or private pensions, as well as some money in savings accounts.

How much will they miss out on?

Figures from HMRC show that, taking inflation into account, this will leave 4.41 million people worse off than they would have expected, by an average of £83 a year in 2013-14.

People due to turn 65 after 5 April 2013 will miss out on an average of £285 compared with what they expected in 2013-14. The biggest loss is £322 that year.

However, nobody will have cash taken away from them that they had already received.

Haven't these people been doing well from government policies?

This is a political argument that has been doing the rounds.

Many pensioners have been spared some potential cuts during the government's austerity drive.

For example, they still receive help with their fuel bills, regardless of their income, and many have benefited from the rising value of their homes.

One thing is certain, they are the subject of the biggest tax raising change announced in the Budget this year.

The move will save the government £360m in 2013-14, rising to £1.25bn a year by 2016-17.

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Water, Water Everywhere….

Those that know me will be aware of my ongoing specific concerns regarding the increases in water supply and sewage disposal costs.  I remain convinced that South West Water (SWW) will not be satisfied until such time as their charges to customers are on a par with the other utilities.

My level of cynicism is only marginally reduced by the fact that SWW have taken on board my suggestion and are currently discussing the possible introduction of additional ‘Social Tariffs’ for those customers that are struggling with their bills.  The existing Social Tariffs are very restricted and it is hoped that implementing a wider range of options will offer a solution for many pensioners that are currently struggling to meet their financial commitments.

The naysayers are concerned that non-Social Tariff  customers will have to pay more to maintain SWW profit margins and dividends to shareholders but, as always, the devil will be in the detail.   More information will be posted here as it becomes available.

Best Wishes

Bob Turner

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Newspaper Article 03/06/2012

In 1989 the Thatcher Government privatised the UK water industry, ensuring a number of private monopolies replaced the former Water Boards. The rationale was to improve the efficiency of the former Water Boards. It also came with a sweetener to the exchequer of between £3.6 and £5.3 billion. To police the new system of privatised monopolies the government formed OFWAT and the Consumer Council for Water (CCW). How has privatisation worked for the consumer? SWW customers pay 66% more than Severn Trent customers for what amounts to the same services! Clearly, there is enormous regional variation in price and it is difficult to understand why this regional variation should exist. Secondly, there is a growing problem of meeting the water demands of the dry, but thirsty E and SE regions. Western areas of the country receive considerably more rainfall and they are generally less populated thereby enjoying a considerable excess of water. The question for our competing privatised companies is how can we meet the water requirements of the whole country as effectively as possible? Unfortunately, the need to generate profit has interfered with the industry’s ability to solve this long-standing problem in the most cost-effective manner. The alternative to expensive reservoirs of using a network of rivers/canals and some additional pipelines to transfer huge volumes of water from the wetter west to the drier east and SE is not under realistic consideration because it doesn't maximise individual water companies' ability to generate additional profits. Can OFWAT bang the heads of the privatised water companies together and insist they come up with a solution to meeting future water demands of the country? Unfortunately, this is impossible under their current terms of reference. There has to be a rationalisation of water prices paid by consumers, which removes regional variations, and the system of allowing water companies to make profit based on their capitalisation needs amendment too. The CCW, which currently serves little practical purpose, should be closed down and their funding redirected to a new authority to calculate nationwide standardised tariffs for metered and unmetered customers that would then be used to charge individual customers standardised bills and avoid the present postcode billing lottery. Secondly, OFWAT should also ensure any FUTURE changes in water company capitalisation are not allocated to individual companies and used as a basis to calculate individual company profitability as they are now. Instead, future increases in capitalisation of all water companies across would be averaged applied to all water companies as a basis for them all to increase future profitability. In this way all UK water companies would be encouraged to work cooperatively and in the national interest.

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Be reassured that the fight for a better deal for pensioners continues.

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Letter from The Acting Chairman - Published in the Media This Week

Many Pensioners Will  Lose Financially.

AS the Acting Chairman of Devon Pensioners Action Forum, representing hundreds of pensioners across Devon, I would like to comment on the recent rise in state pensions and the so called granny tax. This is yet another cash-grabbing exercise by central government to try to bail themselves out of the consequences of their own and previous governments' fiscal failures.

This Governments claim that pensioners will be better off as a result of the five-plus per cent increase in state pensions is not entirely true. While some may be slightly better off, it is becoming increasingly clear that there will be many who are not. Some pensioners will in fact lose money as a consequence of this pathetic pension rise and introduction of the granny tax will only add to their problems.

Some of our members have already contacted us complaining that some, or even all, of the increase is eroded by the impact that the rise has on other benefits they may be receiving. The true effect for some pensioners is an overall reduction to their total income.

Mervyn Kohler of AgeUK commented that the change was, "Relatively small beer in the big picture of things". This is nonsense and irresponsible and he does his organisation and, more importantly those he is supposedly representing, no favours by issuing such a ridiculous statement. Perhaps we can put him right on a few facts of life relating to what it is like being a pensioner in 21st-century UK and trying to survive on some of the lowest pensions in Europe and diminishing incomes from savings, if one is fortunate enough to have any, in the face of escalating costs of utilities, food and other essential items.

The National Insurance Fund surplus stands at about £40Billion and Devon Pensioners' Action Forum states in no uncertain terms that this money should be immediately ring-fenced for its original purpose of paying pensions and benefits. For the past decade at least, successive governments have been 'borrowing', although I prefer the term 'plundering', this surplus for other items of public expenditure.

There is no excuse for such a paltry increase in pensions when there is such a healthy surplus of National Insurance funds that pensioners have already contributed towards for most of their working life on the basis that they would be adequately provided for in their retirement.

While many are prepared to criticise pensioners and write them off as a drain on resources, it perhaps should be remembered that much of the infrastructure that exists in the UK today such as road, rail, education and the NHS etc was created by the hard work and taxes that pensioners have already contributed.

    

    Bob Turner

    Acting Chairman -

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The Great Olympic Tax Swindle

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View the Acting Chairman’s recent letter to Albert Venison here

It is with no little regret that it became necessary to respond to Albert Venison and Colin Hadley’s unsubstantiated and widely distributed attacks on the current Executive Committee.  The letter outlines only some of the facts surrounding events that the current committee have had to deal with over the past 12-15 months.  No longer was I prepared to sit back and do nothing whilst the hard work of this Executive Committee is constantly criticised by those that have contributed little or nothing since their departure.

The current Executive Committee have already received considerable support from many members and I would like to take this opportunity to thank those that have already contacted us with their views.  If you would like to offer your support, comment or opinion please contact us here.