Your rights, your money
I’d like to use today’s blog entry to lend my support to the Your Rights campaign launched earlier in the month by Age Concern to encourage older people to claim the benefits they’re rightfully entitled to.
Most people are very diligent about collecting their full wages – scrutinising pay slips to ensure that overtime or bonuses have been paid and checking deductions made by employers. Strangely - I think - the same cannot be said for many people when it comes to their retirement income. In fact, large sums of state benefit – mainly council tax benefit and Pension Credit - allocated to older people sometimes go unclaimed despite our best efforts to inform people about them.
This is money that could make a huge difference to the quality of person’s life; awards of Pension Credit are on average £46.91 a week. Claiming Housing Benefit could mean paying less or no rent at all.
The Age Concern campaign will run over the next year to encourage older people to claim the benefits that are rightfully theirs. As part of the campaign Age Concern will carry out a free confidential benefit check for anyone contacting their local Age Concern and assist them in filling in relevant forms. Further information and advice on their campaign is provided on their website.
Alternatively, if you want to check whether you have an entitlement to Pension Credit and make a claim, you can contact the Pension Service directly on their free-phone number 0800 99 1234.
If you want to check and claim on a range of benefits including Pension Credit, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit, you can also contact your local Pension Centre on 0845 60 60 265. They will be able to advise you and facilitate your claim within one phone call.
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 11:17 AM by James Purnell and categorized in General posts.