Good morning everyone and we hope you’re having a magnificent weekend!
In the two days since we launched the survey, we have had 111 responses, from across keyworker sectors. This data is already amazing, but we would love to hear from more people.
The link to the survey is here, plus we have posted it on our Instagram and X feeds this morning as well, plus in relevant Long Covid groups on Facebook. If you feel up to it, we would appreciate you sharing the link to the survey.
We would also appreciate it if you write to your elected members to ask them to write to the pensions ministers and (public/sector) pensions agencies, asking them the questions in yet another previous post (the one saying Something You Can Do) - if you get a response from agencies and ministers via your elected representative, it’s really important to forward that on to us - please.
While we now have enough case studies regarding pension applications, both good and bad, we would still like to hear from Keyworkers, if you’ve got it in writing from anyone other than your pension provider that you won’t get IHR if you apply. Don’t worry if you don’t - the survey doesn’t need that!
So THANK YOU if you’ve been sharing the links and furiously emailing or writing to elected representatives - we massively appreciate all your work. The letters or emails to MPs etc are actually FOIs and will be part of this report - so you are ALL a part of this.
That nearly 130,000 of you believe in us is amazing. We are humbled, truly.
Also, Cass, amazingly, HAS been successful in their IHR application, although their tier 2 pension is less than £6000 a year. That’s less than 1/6 of their previous salary. As yet, they’ve only got ESA (which will be affected by the pension) and standard daily allowance for PIP/ADP. However their accrued annual leave and pension lump sum are going to go a very long way to clearing their unsecured debt, although their home still isn’t yet safe AND Cass still has to find the money for a power assist for their wheelchair. They’re hoping that their ADP award will be reassessed and most of that can be funded from that back payment, plus they’re still waiting to hear if their IIDB application will be turned down or not. Given what’s happening to other Keyworkers, Cass reckons they are lucky, but isn’t hopeful about either their ADP or IIDB.
Have a good week, friends, we will update you all again soon!