A25Delivery risk: AmberGate: pending
Claim what people are owed
Existing action A25, assessed at the same scope.
Provisional single-reviewer assessment; not an approved business case.
- Who and where
- Pensioner families in Great Britain entitled to Pension Credit who do not claim. (from the action record) Jurisdiction: Great Britain.
- Result so far
- Range if completed: 16.0–22.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co))
- Funded now (baseline)
- Pension Credit and DWP take-up campaigns already exist; a targeted, evaluated outreach model is a UK Facts proposal. (from the action record)
- The change assessed (marginal)
- Assisted applications for people likely to be entitled to Pension Credit. (from the superseded 4 October selection table)
- Domain home: Benefits
- In the national plan: Equality and opportunity list
What the evidence supports—and the next decision
Estimated non-take-up identifies an access problem, but cannot predict how many additional awards a new campaign will secure.
AI-assisted analytical follow-up · 8 October 2026. Proposed appraisal design; the attributed scores below are unchanged. No funding or delivery agreement is implied.
- Define the change
- Test assisted Pension Credit applications for an identified likely-entitled group against existing outreach.
- Test whether it works
- Additional correct awards, processing time, household income and sustained receipt; distinguish applications from entitlement and awards.
- Establish the cost
- Outreach, advice and processing plus additional benefit expenditure. Report fiscal transfers separately from social resource costs.
- Protect against harm
- Use consent and secure data matching; minimise distress, false eligibility messages and digital exclusion.
Read with the outcome evidence and sources in the full assessment. Monitoring proposals are not existing baseline measurements. A numerical benefit or cost score needs evidence for the defined increment, not just the scale of the problem.
Full assessment of Claim what people are owed: ten criteria, scenarios, delivery, costs and monitoring
The ten criteria (0–3)
Each criterion is scored 0 to 3 by the reviewer. “Not yet assessed” means unknown: it is never counted as zero.
Scale and severity (Sc)2 of 3 — Serious harm to a defined group or widespread moderate harm
Reviewer’s reason: Provisional problem-importance judgement from linked site pages; not the scale of achievable benefit.
Increment beyond baseline (Ad)2 of 3 — Specific material change to existing delivery
Reviewer’s reason: Specify eligible cohort, trusted outreach, application support and comparison group; arrange benefits-processing capacity. A missing rating requires a defined marginal change.
Confidence in the proposed action (Ev)0 of 3 — No effect evaluation
Reviewer’s reason: Unclaimed entitlement establishes a gap; effect of this outreach design is untested.
Expected incremental benefit (Bn)Not yet assessed
Reviewer’s reason: Unknown unless a reasonably defined target-population benefit can be judged; no bonus merely for spanning domains.
Residual harms (Hm)2 of 3 — Manageable harm with specified safeguards
Reviewer’s reason: Privacy, mistaken advice and processing delays; fiscal cost is not equivalent to social loss.
Incremental affordability (Co)Not yet assessed
Reviewer’s reason: Outreach and administration plus additional entitlement paid; show fiscal transfers separately from social resource costs.
Delivery capacity (Ca)2 of 3 — Stretched but plausibly obtainable
Reviewer’s reason: Specify eligible cohort, trusted outreach, application support and comparison group; arrange benefits-processing capacity.
Distribution (Fa)3 of 3 — Benefits concentrated on disadvantaged people with assessed burdens
Reviewer’s reason: Provisional distribution judgement for the stated target; verify who pays, who gains and excluded groups.
Meaningful first outcome (Ti)3 of 3 — Within one year
Reviewer’s reason: First meaningful outcome, not announcement: Successful sustained take-up, disposable income, errors and claimant experience.
Readiness (Rd)2 of 3 — Named commissioning/allocation/coordination step
Reviewer’s reason: DWP, councils and advice providers; Assisted-application trial
Four weightings
Normalised as 10 × weighted sum ÷ sum of weights, on a 0–30 scale. Where a criterion is not yet assessed, the range is the lowest and highest result if it were later scored 0 or 3 — not a score, a confidence interval or a rank.
- Equal weights: Range if completed: 16.0–22.0 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
- Evidence doubled: Range if completed: 14.5–20.0 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
- Scale doubled: Range if completed: 16.4–21.8 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
- Cost ignored (the funding gate still applies): Range if completed: 17.8–21.1 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
Funding gate: Not passed — the cost is not yet assessed or no allocation is committed for this scope. Ignoring cost in a weighting never removes the gate.
Delivery risk and gate
Delivery risk shown: AmberReview’s claim: Amber. Best the recorded evidence allows: Amber.
Review’s reason: Outreach and administration plus additional entitlement paid; show fiscal transfers separately from social resource costs.
Why it is not Green yet
- Scope (population, place and increment) not verified against the delivery baseline.
- No verified owner with the powers in place.
- Delivery capacity not verified.
- Lifetime incremental costs not complete.
- No credible funding (a committed allocation for the scope).
- Safeguards not specified.
- Monitoring lacks a metric, a data source or a baseline.
Green needs verified scope, a verified owner with the powers, verified capacity, complete lifetime costs with credible funding, specified safeguards and monitoring with a metric, source and baseline. Amber means appraisal gaps remain; Red means a material delivery obstacle. Red does not mean unimportant.
Gate: Pending — appraisal incomplete (review label: “Pending: incomplete appraisal”).
Why: Scores incomplete; Funding gate not passed (cost unknown or no credible funding).
The gate is separate from national list membership: being listed does not make an option eligible, and an eligible option need not be listed.
Cost and funding
Lifetime costing: Partial — some lines costed, no whole-life total. Review: “Full incremental costing not established in reviewed material”.
- Extra Pension Credit paid if more entitled people claim (partial; C-A25-ENTITLEMENT)
- Outreach, data matching and assisted applications (not costed; C-A25-OUTREACH)
Still to cost: Outreach and administration plus additional entitlement paid; show fiscal transfers separately from social resource costs.
Funding status: not identified.
Owner, powers and capacity
Proposed owner: DWP, councils and advice providers (proposed, unverified).
Powers: needs a decision or allocation. Capacity: unverified.
Powers and capacity read from the review’s Rd and Ca anchors; no proposed owner has agreed to act (the review: “Proposed owners have not agreed to act”).
- England:
- DWP, councils and advice providers (action record)
- Scotland:
- DWP, councils and advice providers (action record)
- Wales:
- DWP, councils and advice providers (action record)
- Northern Ireland:
- not assessed
Northern Ireland administers its own social security; not assessed.
Dependencies, safeguards and risks
Depends on: None recorded.
Safeguards
None specified yet.
Risks and residual harms: Privacy, mistaken advice and processing delays; fiscal cost is not equivalent to social loss.
Monitoring and measured results
Metric: Successful sustained take-up, disposable income, errors and claimant experience.
Data source: Not yet named. Baseline: Not yet established.
Measures already on the domain page
- Pension Credit take-up (caseload): latest 62% (2024–25 (FYE 2025)); baseline 65% (2022–23 (FYE 2023)) (Great Britain).
A page measure is not necessarily the review’s metric; linking the two is an editorial decision still to be made.
Evidence for the outcome
Outcome: Successful sustained take-up, disposable income, errors and claimant experience.
Unclaimed entitlement establishes a gap; effect of this outreach design is untested.
Effect records for this action
- Income of eligible pensioners who start claiming: size not established (plausible spillover, limited confidence; Great Britain)
SWOT points it addresses
- Only 62% of people entitled to Pension Credit claimed it; up to 900,000 entitled families did not, leaving up to £2.4bn unclaimed in 2024–25 (one year’s estimate). (Benefits)
- Raising take-up of existing entitlements, testing whether the basic rate covers essentials and offering suitable employment support address different failures in the same system. (Benefits)
- An established payment route: Universal Credit recorded 8.4 million people in May 2026; 3.1 million were in work in April 2026. Being on the caseload does not necessarily mean receiving a payment. (Benefits)
Review record
Assessment status: Provisional single-reviewer assessment; not an approved business case.
Reviewer: Original assessment author (name not supplied). Reviewed: 6 October 2026.
Scored in the working review of 6 October 2026 on the shared ten-criterion scale (one reviewer); not independently calibrated.
First 90 days (review): Produce a signed scope and current-delivery baseline; Specify eligible cohort, trusted outreach, application support and comparison group; arrange benefits-processing capacity. Obtain incremental costs and an accountable decision before expansion.
Decision route: Assisted-application trial
An earlier assessment exists on the 4 October 2026 selection table (nine H/M/L bands; superseded 7 October 2026). Its bands are kept, not converted into these scores.
An editorial screening framework by one reviewer, not a formal appraisal or business case. Proposed owners have not agreed to act.