ELDERLY people in East Renfrewshire are failing to claim almost £3million due to them in Pension Credit each year.

An investigation by the Independent Age charity found that 1,200 local pensioners are missing out on the seven-figure windfall.

The East Renfrewshire figures show that £2.9m is going unclaimed every 12 months – an average of around £2,500 per pensioner.

Pension Credit is a UK Government benefit designed to keep low-income pensioners out of poverty.

However, experts at Independent Age said four out of 10 OAPs across the country are missing out, with an estimated £900,000 going unclaimed each year in the Barrhead and Neilston areas alone.

Their findings suggest that about 460 pensioners in Barrhead and Neilston could be due the money.

Independent Age commissioned a team at Loughborough University, in England, to carry out the research.

They found that pensioners failing to claim the credit were then more likely to seek help from the NHS or their local council for their needs, costing Scottish taxpayers a further £375m per year.

Across East Renfrewshire, the failure to claim £2.9m worth of Pension Credit had an estimated knock-on bill of £4.2m.

In Barrhead and Neilston, the extra cost to the taxpayer is thought to be around £1.6m.

Deborah Alsina, Independent Age chief executive, described the current take-up rate for Pension Credit as “woefully low.”

She said: “Ensuring the poorest pensioners have a liveable income is not only the right thing to do, it’s also the economically responsible thing to do.

“The government needs to urgently create an action plan that contains high-quality, up-to-date research into who is not claiming Pension Credit and why they are not receiving it.”

Many older people who do receive Pension Credit have told the charity they would struggle to afford food or to heat their home if they did not have the payment.

The charity has said that, if everyone eligible for Pension Credit was to claim it, 450,000 older people across the UK could be lifted out of poverty.

For more details, visit https://www.gov.uk/pension-credit.