How much to enter into the calculator

The government’s rule is that £10 per week of income from war pensions is ignored (“disregarded”) when working out your entitlement to other benefits. But local authorities have the discretion to completely disregard income from war pensions when calculating your entitlement to Council Tax Reduction and Housing Benefit.

In practice most councils operate a 100% disregard, so for Council Tax Reduction and Housing Benefit the calculator will disregard 100% of your war pension.

Please note that war pensions are made up of several elements and some local authorities fully disregard some elements of a war pension but not others. Unfortunately, the department that administers war pensions, the Veteran’s Agency, does not provide a breakdown on general documentation.

Unless a form is sent to the Veteran’s Agency at Blackpool an accurate breakdown cannot often be obtained. If you don't know the components of your war pension you should contact the Veteran’s Agency and your council's benefits section for more information.

Because the calculator simplifies the way war pensions work, if your local scheme operates under different rules - or if some parts of your war pension are disregarded and others not - then our estimate will be incorrect. If you have complex circumstances you may be unable to carry out benefit calculations involving war pensions and should seek further advice.

You can find out more about war pensions on the Veterans’ Agency website. This also provides more details of the help available to war pensioners to cover the cost of medical treatment, hospital travelling expenses and nursing care.

War Pension elements

The most common war pension elements are:

• War Disablement Pension
• Rank Allowance
• Dependency Allowance
• Age Allowance
• Unemployability Supplement
• Allowance for wife paid with Unemployability Supplement
• Allowance for children paid with Unemployability Supplement
• Invalidity Allowance
• Constant Attendance Allowance
• Allowance for Lowered Standard of Occupation
• Gallant Conduct Award
• Service Rank Addition
• Severe Disablement Occupational Allowance
• Exceptionally Severe Disablement Allowance
• Comforts Allowance
• Age 80 Addition
• War Pensioner’s Mobility Supplement
• War Widows Pension
• Child Allowance
• Rent Allowance
• Pre 1973 Allowance for War Widows