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On This Day

24

Aug
2016

In On This Day

By Nicola Gauld

On This Day, 24 August 1916

On 24, Aug 2016 | In On This Day | By Nicola Gauld

Birmingham Daily Post

Thursday 24 August 1916

ARMY PENSIONS.

DELAYS OF PAYMENT IN BIRMINGHAM.

The delay in payment of pensions to disabled solders who have been discharged from the army was again referred to in Parliament on Tuesday night, and the Financial Secretary to the War Office said that arrangements had now been made which, he thought, would result in prompt payment to all men discharged on medical grounds in future, and all men who had already been discharged would be dealt with as rapidly as possible.
Enquiries in Birmingham show that there has been a good deal of distress among disabled soldiers owing to delays in the payment of pensions following the cessation of the separation allowance. Mrs. Shakespeare, the secretary of the Birmingham Citizens’ (Statutory) Committee, which is now responsible for the distribution of grants, &c., to distressed soldiers, said yesterday, in the course of an interview, that a man, if married, should receive £1 from the Pensions Issue Office in London pending the settlement of the amount of his pension. Experience certainly shows that the temporary allowance seldom got through without much delay. The Citizens Committee had power to advance £1 to a married man and 10s. to a single man, and such advances had to be made to tide men over temporary periods of distress. The whole point, however, was that the temporary allowance was to do away with the necessity of soldiers applying to the local committee. A soldier, if unable to work, was entitled to get 10s. from the approved society of which he was a member, but, frequently, there was delay in obtaining that money. If a soldier had no claim to such sickness benefit, then the committee might make a grant. When a soldier was discharged from the army he received a card from the officer in charge of Records notifying him of the address of the Local Statutory Committee to whom he was directed to apply, but, unfortunately for themselves, many soldiers in distress were dilatory in filling up the pension papers, making their applications, and in attending before their local doctor so as to be placed on his “panel”. It had been suggested that the separation allowance should be continued until the question of the full pension was decided and payment actually begun, but Mrs. Shakespeare said she apprehended there would be difficulty in carrying out that proposal because payments from regimental sources were asked on behalf of men who ceased to be soldiers. It appeared that the staff of the Pensions Issue Office was at present inadequate to deal with the existing pressure of work.