¶ Intro / Opening
Hello, welcome to this Money Box Podcast. NSI admits keeping nearly half a billion pounds in its coffers that it should have given to the heirs of customers who had died. Bosses from Capita apologise again as MPs question them about the long delays facing retired civil servants still waiting for their pension. And do you know your gross from your net salary? The call to teach fifteen year olds about money in real life.
¶ Petrol Price Surge and Driver Impact
But first, the cost of filling up your car has risen every day for the past three weeks, as the war in the Middle East continues. A month on from the first bombardments, the average price of a litre of diesel has hit one pound seventy eight, a price last seen on Christmas Day, twenty twenty two, ten months after Russia invaded Ukraine. Petrol was about one pound thirty two a liter before the war began, and it's just tipped over one pound fifty.
Those figures are UK averages from the RAC, and of course what you pay will depend where you live and who you buy it from. Our reporter Dan Whitworth spoke to these drivers travelling on the M six.
Martin O'Brien, 52 years of age from Rochdale. I drive an electric car, but I'm speaking to a lot of customers, colleagues, That are saying they're paying as much as one pound eighty. Seen it for one pound seventy yesterday in Thornby in Liverpool, so it's gonna affect a lot of things.
From Bristol.
Matt, talk to me. What sort of car do you drive? Is it electric, petrol, diesel? Have you noticed an increase in the price?
for Fiesta? Yes I have. Crazy, it's adding up. It's obviously less you can spend on kind of days out and small luxuries really having to think about it, more especially with obviously up the other rising costs.
I'm Sylvia, I'm a doctor and I I live in Taunton. So I drive a diesel car and and I have to drive every day for work so that's definitely impacting my finances and I think it might get worse.
So my name's David Locke and I'm from the Ronda Valleys in South Wales. So I drive a petrol car, uh Mercedes. The the cost is gone up significantly. I can see where people that are you know, having to travel every single day, going to work, I could notice that that's gonna impact them a lot more.
I'm from Coventry. My name is Fazel Masod. Diesel X5 is three liter.
How much of a difference have you noticed that the petrol pumps at the forecourt, the diesel pumps?
Normally when I could go to Manchester I put uh like uh forty pound I can go come go and come back. But now today I put fifty pound, I don't think so, I uh I think I need to put more.
Dan speaking to drivers on the M six. Well listening to that is Edmund King, he's president of the AA. I mean Edmund King, crude oil prices are up again today. How does that feed through and so quickly to petrol and diesel at the service station?
Yeah, the crude prices today, Paul, are about one hundred and fourteen dollars. So it's traded in dollars. So again the cost depends on the dollar against the pound. And then there are global market forces, supply and demand and geopolitical events which we've been seeing, that puts the price up. As well as kind of futures markets and people speculating on the price of oil. That pushes it up. It then goes into the wholesale cost, there's then refining cost.
There's then retail pricing and then of course there's taxes. You the government takes fifty two P in fuel duty and about twenty six P in VAT. So it's a whole combination of those factors that feed through. Sometimes feeds through really fast, sometimes it's a bit slower.
And people do feel it, don't they? I mean, we heard from Faisal talking to Dan, he has to put £50 worth in now to go from Coventry to Manchester and back. It used to be £40. These are noticeable differences.
Well, yeah, they they are absolutely, and about twenty five percent of people put in a certain amount of fuel by pounds, so twenty pounds, forty pounds, fifty pounds, and obviously that is not going as far as it did. And using PriceFinder apps that on the AA app this morning, we look on the A three O three, so a big road, major road, not in a rural area. garages on either side of the road had a thirteen p a litre difference, w which is stunning. Places like Reading, the same oil company,
Three garages within a mile, mile and a half at an eight P a litre difference. So it is worth consumers checking apps, checking local prices to get the best deals.
Yes, I mean you certainly can save ten, maybe ten pence, maybe even more, and if you're filling up a big car that's that's a lot of money. Now of course a lot of that, as you say, is tax. As prices rise, of course, more VAT goes into the Treasury, doesn't it? Do you think the Chancellor should be Rowing back on her plans to start phasing out this cut in fuel duty that was made during the Ukraine war, um should they cancel it and keep that cut?
Well, the first part of that cut's meant to come in September, so we have got a a few months. Um But certainly the government is making more out of VAT now since the prices have gone up. So there is some flexibility. So yeah, they certainly should look at fuel duty. Other countries are already cutting it.
And how does this compare with previous oil shocks? I mean should we expect it to come down quite quickly if things resolve themselves in the Middle East or are we stuck with these high prices for a while?
Yeah, the UK's quite used to this, you know, in the seventies we had an energy crisis, in two thousand we had fuel protests, twenty twelve there was a fuel tanker strike. Twenty twenty two, the uh invasion of Ukraine hiked up prices and in fact they went much higher than what we're currently seeing. So the market is flexible. If world events calm down, the prices at the punt should come down quite quickly.
Yes. There has been a lot of talk of profiteering. I mean not least by the government. the Petrol Retailers Association says those allegations are unfounded and it doesn't reflect the prices o the reality on the forecourts where prices have g risen less per litre than the wholesale price. But of course people say to me They go up quickly. a week ago and it's being sold at today's prices.
Yeah, I mean there have been government investigations into that so called rocket and feather effect and it was found to be working in some areas. But I think you have to be sympathetic for those small garages in rural areas which who are often a lifeline to the local community and they have to pay more because they sell less. And they buy it at h higher prices. But some of the other big ones, the variations in price, are really not justified.
Edmund King of the A. Thanks.
¶ NS&I Lost Funds Scandal
It's time to buy an electric car. National Savings and Investments, or NS and I, the state owned savings bank, has admitted that it's failed to track down the accounts of tens of thousands of people who had died. keeping nearly half a billion pounds in its coffers that should have been passed on to their estates. In many cases that even happened to people who asked for the money uh for their lovedw of their loved ones, but were told by N S and I it didn't exist, when of course it did.
Moneybox listener Rona's husband died in November. She got probate, she completed all the paywork, paperwork. requested Ennis and I to release fifty thousand pounds, which her late husband had held in premium bonds, but she told our reporter, Bissy Adibeo, she still didn't have the money.
It then got to the 24th of March. I still had heard absolutely nothing. So I decided to make a formal complaint through their website. Which I did. They responded very quickly. Uh it was the customer care team and they said that they passed my complaint on to their bereavement team. And it's all gone quiet again.
How has this delay affected you both practically and in terms of dealing with your husband's estate?
The the problem is that in this sort of situation, bereavement teams are dealing with people who are vulnerable and fragile because of bereavement. ac mae'r ffwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwgwg
That was Rona early on Friday, but by the evening she told us, perhaps by coincidence, her money had arrived. Treasury Minister Torsten Bell told the House of Commons that the problem could have affected thirty seven and a half thousand people owed four hundred and seventy six million pounds. which national savings and investments hadn't passed on to relatives of customers who'd died.
NSNI said it's extremely sorry to all those affected and it's quote working hard to ensure everybody affected is paid what is owed to them, as the minister set out.
And for the avoidance of doubt, let me spell out that those savings are one hundred percent safe. This issue is about tracing, not the security of any funds, but it is important nonetheless. NSNI has put in place a dedicated programme team and it has hired an additional one hundred staff. I have asked them to publish a delivery plan in May detailing how they will take forward this work to reunite funds with their owners.
Mae'n ymwneud â'r nifer o'r nifer o'r nifer o'r nifer o'r nifer o'r nifer o'r nifer o'r nifer o'r nifer o'r nifer. Nid yw nid ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud.
Most of these problems affected people who died between two thousand and eight and twenty twenty five. So when the heirs finally get their money, could inheritance tax be due? Robert Salter is a director at Accountant Split Rothenberg. He says most estates won't have had to pay inheritance tax anyway because they're not over the threshold, and even if they were, it may be too late for HMRC to claim it now.
where people exceed that threshold, if the tax return is done on a timely basis all the taxes paid on a timely basis and that is four plus years ago. In practice there's a statute of limitations which applies, which means you shouldn't need to amend that return in the great majority of situations. Where people do have to amend an IHT tax return or where there may be a delay in finalising the tax return, it would be helpful for the government to come up with clear guidance.
about how they're going to handle such situations straight away. For example, making it clear that any penalties for late declarations will be waived. Or potentially also when it comes to actually any additional tax which is due, making sure that there's no interest charged on that late payment of tax.
Well the government has said it wants to avoid families facing any costs as a result of the error. NSNI says on its website any money due will be paid automatically and no one should contact it. Well, I'm sure we'll be returning to this story when further details are published in May, and we'd like to hear from you if you think these problems may affect you. Email moneybox at BBC. co dot UK or WhatsApp O double three zero six seven eight three. Yeah.
¶ Capita Civil Service Pension Delays
Despair, exasperation, no end in sight. Just some of the comments from a handful of the tens of thousands of retired civil servants still desperately struggling to access their pensions. Rydyn ni'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio. as we first told you in January, since Capita took over the running of the scheme last year. For many of the scheme's members things have gone from bad to worse, and worse still ever since.
This week two senior Capita executives appeared for a second time in front of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee to answer questions from MPs. Moneybox's Dan Whitworth was watching.
Can I start with an apology?
Like their previous appearance last month, Capita executives Chris Clements and Richard Holroyd started things off by saying sorry. Again.
I came to this committee on February 12, and I apologise then for the quality of the service being delivered to the members of the Civil Service Pension Scheme. I reiterate that apology.
Capita took over the scheme in December following a two-year handover with the previous provider. It's one of the biggest in the UK with around 1.7 million members, but Capita has faced huge criticism since it took charge. During more than two hours of questioning by MPs, Mr. Clements and Mr. Holroyd said things have improved, much shorter wait times on the phones, more lump sums being paid out and more urgent cases being dealt with.
But Labour's Catherine McKinnell said for many members it's still a huge ongoing issue, causing stress, inconvenience, and financial hardship.
This issue is the second biggest issue in my constituency in Boston.
Fuck.
When Capita took over there was an existing backlog of eighty-six thousand cases, but that quickly grew to one hundred and twenty thousand. Covering everything from simple pension calculation queries to urgent questions about lump sum payments due months ago, something the deputy chair of the committee Labour's Clive Betts. highlighted to Chris Clements when he talked about the case of two widows who were due payments months ago.
We are now in March.
Thank you.
They were entitled to a pension from last October and no payments being made to widowed ladies.
Struggle.
Financially.
Thank you.
Again, these apparently are not a priority either, are they?
The they they are and again we apologize to everybody who's had to wait. Um they are uh a priority and again if you pass us those details we'll we'll look into those specific cases. Um we are ymwneud â'r penderfyniadau a'r penderfyniadau a'r penderfyniadau a'r penderfyniadau a'r penderfyniadau.
To tackle the backlog, Capita told MPs it's been prioritizing certain cases, those involving ill health, bereavement and financial hardship, but admitted it would still be the end of June before anything like a normal service resumes. Liberal Democrat MP Rachel Gilmour pointed to a member of the public sitting behind Richard Holroyd as he answered the committee's questions.
ac mae'r cyhoeddus wedi wedi'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i practically every word you would say. Yn ymwneud â'r pwyntio ymwneud â'r pwyntio ac ymwneud â'r pwyntio ymwneud â'r pwyntio'n ymwneud â'r pwyntio?
Thank you.
Yes.
yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw
The man they're talking about is Ian Gill, who spent more than thirty years working in the civil service, but having now retired has no income and is owed tens of thousands of pounds.
I would qualify the fact that capital were answering the questions. I think capital were generally obfuscating and hiding. They weren't being open and honest in the way that I would expect them to be. They were also making statements that myself and other uh colleagues who turned up
Au revoir.
quite happy to say no, that's not the case. That is completely false. So they were going on about how many times people answer the phone. We got it down to thirty seconds. It's like great. So now have I got to wait thirty seconds to find out nothing instead of four hours, which is what I was doing previously. I'm no better off. It's just a shorter phone bill.
Another former civil servant who was watching was Manju Barker. She applied for her pension nearly a year ago and is still waiting for her money tens of thousands of pounds, which was due before Christmas, forcing her to borrow off family and friends.
I'm absolutely livid. I have no answers at all. The the questions that I want answering have not been asked or answered. And I have absolutely no confidence. that they will actually do what they say they're gonna do in the timelines. And by June I have absolutely got no faith in the system. Um We will wait and see.
And you Barker talking to Dan Whitworth on the deja vu session of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee this week.
¶ Promoting Youth Financial Literacy
And if you're a regular money box listener, we'd hope you'd know your ISA from your IHT. But do you know why your gross salary is so much more than you actually receive or how to work out how much annual interest you'd pay on a ten thousand pound loan at seven point nine percent? A group of financial firms and charities is calling for the introduction of an exam which measures how much young people know about real world financial products and services.
The PISA financial literary assessment is also used across the world to test the financial attitudes and knowledge of fifteen year olds, but the UK doesn't take part. Rwy'r reporter Luke Jarman took to the streets of Penrith to test shopper's knowledge on one of the PISA exam questions.
🎵 Music
You can buy tomatoes by the kilo or by the box. It's£2.75 for half a kilo or£22 for a£4.5 kilo box. Which is the better value and why?
Oh, gimme a second to do maths here. T is uh 550 is one. Did you say it was twenty-two for four? Uh uh four and a half, mathematically.
I don't know. I'll say the box, I might be wrong. I can't wa can't I can't work it out.
Thank you.
Mae'n rhaid mewn gwirionedd oherwydd mae'n rhaid mewn gwirionedd oherwydd mae'n rhaid mewn gwirionedd.
🎵 Music
Why might buying a box of tomatoes be a bad financial decision for some people?
In case you're not gonna use'em before they all go off and then you've wasted all your money.
Because you won't be able to consume them within their lifespan and therefore you're wasting money.
Depending on how I'm feeling about those tomatoes.
Squished red tomatoes at Penrith's Whistle Stop Cafe. Well listening to that is Leon Ward, the chief executive of Money Ready, a financial education charity. Um Leomold, that was just one question from a pe previous PISA financial literacy exam. Tell us a bit more about what sort of financial knowledge is tested.
Yeah, good afternoon. Thank you for having me. Um it's a general assessment that looks at real-world applications around financial knowledge and skills. And anybody can go online and do the two test questions that were in the twenty twenty-two piece of examination. One of them is Greg buys a bike which is advertised at 600. He takes out a low interest loan with the bikes, shops, in-store, finance company. Will Greg pay more, less, or the same as the list price?
So what that's doing is without telling you the interest off the loan, it's asking if you can spot that a low interest loan means that you will end up paying more than the original list price. Another which is a good thing.
All three.
It's a a really interesting one'cause it's very relevant to young people now, which is Someone is selling something on a website, the seller reaches out and says, I will pay you more, but directly to your bank and not via the website. And the question is, provide one reason why refusing this person's offer may be a good financial decision for the seller.
Rydw i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd. ac rydych chi'n gweithio'r cydweithio'r cydweithio'r cydweithio'r cydweithio'r cydweithio'r cydweithio'r cydweithio'r cydweithio'r cydweithio.
Yeah, so the UK already takes part in the PISA assessment, just not the financial education element. So we already have the schools up and running that can do this. Rydyn ni'n ymwneud â hynny'n ymwneud â hynny'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu.
sy'n cael eu bod yn cael eu bod yn cael eu bod yn cael eu bod yn cael eu bod yn cael eu bod yn cael eu bod yn cael eu bod yn cael eu bod yn cael eu bod yn cael eu bod yn cael eu bod yn cael eu bod check and sense check what's working to be able to empower teachers to make the changes they need to improve their school.
Do you have estimates of how much financial ignorance, if I can perhaps rudely call it that, is costing people?
Yes, we've uh released some statistics this year, which was three thousand people that we surveyed, and um the results have shown that it's around a cost of six hundred and forty pounds every year to each household.
for confusion and indecision. Basically people putting off making key critical financial decisions because they're confused by them or they're indecisive. And what lots of people tell us when Money Ready conducts its research is that actually They just feel a bit nervous about engaging with their finances because they've got things everywhere and it's and it takes a lot of time.
Who will teach this? I mean, are teachers really trained in financial products and services?
That is a challenge that we recognise that obviously teachers themselves are part of the general population and the general population in the UK has low financial capability. It's around nineteen percent of of adults, so ten point three million adults across this country report low confidence in working with numbers.
So the government does need to think about how it's going to support teachers to increase their own financial literacy and critically continue their development because as we know, financial services products are changing every day. Well, I'd love it to be every week, of course. Um I I think I think you can be creative and put it across the curriculum and that's what we would encourage teachers to do.
Li Leon Ward from Money Ready, thanks very much. Well, if you're still not sure what those tomatoes cost per kilo, I have to admit I'm not either, and your arithmetic is not what it was or should be. Are you ready for big tax changes from April?
¶ Upcoming Tax Changes and Program Close
Called making tax digital, some self employed people will have to file five tax returns a year, not one. And that's the topic for Money Box Live, which is back on Wednesdays and of course part of your Money Box Podcast subscription. When Felicity Hannah will be here, she'll have as a guest the man in charge of all this at HMRC. She'll also be looking at all the things that go up in price in April from water to broadband.
You can let us know your worries and thoughts about money by emailing us moneybox at BBC. co dot UK or send a voice note or a message on our WhatsApp O double three oh six seven eight three one eight three. In this podcast the reporters were Dan Whitworth, Bissy Adabeo, and Luke Jarmin. Researcher, Joe Krasner, studio manager, Paul Lewis.
Well, not me, they wouldn't give me that much responsibility. Our editor is the one and only Jess Quayle, and I'm this Paul Lewis, and the podcast was the BBC News money and work production for BBC Sounds.
A group of men ran in with Michette.
🎵 Music
Is gangsters. The story.
The scene of the killing near a Chinese bookshop is being flooded with detectives. Welcome to the
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