Over 10,000 Pension Credit claims were made during the week of 13 June – an increase of 275% compared to that same week in 2021.

The two-step in the right direction was helped by Strictly Come Dancing’s Len Goodman, who teamed up with Minister for Pensions Guy Opperman to help spread the message. The pair’s social media video encouraging Pension Credit claims has now been viewed over 1.3 million times.

The boost means even more pensioners could be in line to receive extra financial support worth an average of over £3,300 a year.

Minister for Pensions Guy Opperman said:

We recognise the challenges some pensioners will be facing with the cost of living which is why promoting Pension Credit is a priority.

The success of our Day of Action means more pensioners can get the support they’re entitled to, but we’re not stopping there. We’re continuing to get the word out about Pension Credit, calling on everyone with retired family, friends and loved ones to check in with them and see if they can get this extra financial support, which can make a huge difference to people’s lives.

The Day of Action also saw charities, stakeholders, broadcasters and a whole range of partners getting involved to encourage people to claim.

Pension Credit is designed to help with daily living costs for people over State Pension age and on a low income, though you do not need to be in receipt of State Pension to receive it.

It tops up a person’s income to a minimum of £182.60 per week for single pensioners and to £278.70 for couples.

Currently, over 1.4 million pensioners in Britain receive Pension Credit. However, many are still not claiming this extra financial help.

Rich Mackenzie, DWP Visiting Officer, said:

Many people who could claim Pension Credit aren’t.

I would appeal to anyone who comes into contact with pensioners to ask how much they know about Pension Credit. It could be something that helps, and in the current financial climate, there’s no doubt that more people will experience hardship.

Pension Credit won’t solve every problem, but it will go a long way to alleviating difficulties. It should be a collective endeavour for us all.

Even a small Pension Credit award can provide access to a wide range of other benefits – such as help with housing costs, council tax or heating bills. For those over 75, this includes continued entitlement to a free TV licence.

Pension Credit can be claimed by phone and online, ensuring that older people can apply safely and easily, wherever they are. The online Pension Credit calculator is also on hand to help pensioners check if they’re likely to be eligible and get an estimate of what they may receive.

Applications for Pension Credit can be made:

IPO is entering a new era as we look to recruit a new CEO and Deputy CEO in the coming months. That goes for our digital services too, as we start the process of building brand new services, with the new patents service now less than two years away from launching.

Some things aren’t changing though. Our One IPO Transformation Programme remains our number one priority and will continue as planned. The programme is still on track, with patents coming in 2024, trade marks in 2025 and designs in 2026. In fact, all of our initial transformation projects – Manage IP, Secure IP, Research IP and Challenge IP are now up and running. Below is a brief update on where we are with each of those.

Manage IP

Manage IP is the new IPO customer account, where you’ll be able to manage all of your IP in one place. In March we shared more information and early designs of the Manage IP service, including the account registration process, the account dashboard and the change of IP ownership process. Since then, we have:

• continued to develop and improve the parts of the service we’ve already shared, based on customer feedback
• explored how we’ll bring customers onto the new service and how we’ll help them to link their account to their IP rights
• finished the core designs of the service and are now looking at how we handle some of the less common cases, or where things aren’t straight-forward
• moved out of the prototyping phase and starting to build the service on the technology we’ll be using for all our new services

Secure IP

Secure IP is the new IP application service. Today, we’ve published a blog from Secure IP Project Lead, Emma Ford, who shares further information on our new application service, and some early designs of what it will look like.

The secure IP service will provide:

• the same experience across all rights, as much as possible
• a more flexible application service that will allow you can skip the parts of the application that don’t apply to you
• a smarter application service that will reduce errors and inefficiency by checking the application and stopping errors before they are filed
• a quicker and easier application service that will reuse information from your customer account and business data from elsewhere (eg Companies House)
• improved guidance and automatic notifications

We plan to start building the Secure IP service on our new tech in July.

Research IP

Research IP will provide new tools to help you search and analyse IP. It will make it much easier for customers to find and analyse information about UK IP rights. We have just finished our initial research for this project, with 77 customers taking part.

Customers told us that the problems with the current service are:

• a lack of consistency when searching across registered IP rights
• the search functionality is very limited
• it’s difficult to interpret results and gain valuable insights from our data

In response, some of the things we’re exploring for the Research IP service are:

• one register for all IP rights
• providing better search, filtering and data visualisation options
• the ability to monitor and track certain IP rights

Challenge IP

In June we started building the last of our four new services – Challenge IP. Challenge IP is a new digital service for challenging IP rights through hearings or tribunals. This is the first time we have ever offered a digital service for hearings and tribunals.

We still want to hear from you

It’s still vital that we hear from you as we continue to design, test and build our new services. We have just started our latest round of research and want to hear from you. To take part email usertesting@ipo.gov.uk.

Great project managers are wanted to help Dstl deliver its wide-ranging programme of specialist science and technology work to the Ministry of Defence and wider government.

Offering exceptional benefits and strong career development prospects to its employees, Dstl is the science inside the UK’s defence and security and an executive agency of the Ministry of Defence, helping to protect our nation.

Project managers are critical to delivering Dstl’s expert research, specialist advice and invaluable operational support across a fascinating variety of areas, from cyber and artificial intelligence to weapons and explosives.

In return, Dstl offers a great career pathway, continual professional development through training and education routes, and membership of professional bodies.

The increased demand for project management skills reflects the requirements identified in the 2021 Integrated Review and the projects and programmes included in MOD’s Science and Technology Portfolio for 2022 and beyond.

Carl, project manager in Exploration Division, says:

I’m currently working on a project with a wide range of investigation from DNA to neuromorphic and quantum computing. 

In addition to the projects that I help to deliver, Dstl offers a great career pathway that can take you from Project Support Officer, all the way to senior project management roles. 

Continual professional development is actively promoted via a wealth of training and education routes and membership of professional bodies.

Helen, senior principal project manager, says:

I deliver exciting science and technology (S&T) across defence and wider government. We do incredible work and it’s great to be part of it. No two days are the same and every day is a learning day.

Highlights of working at Dstl are the people, our values, diversity and inclusion and of course flexible working. The sky is the limit if you are driven to succeed and the variety of work across Dstl is second to none.

You don’t need a science and technology background, just great project management skills.