Social Security Benefits: Take-up

(asked on 15th March 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to (a) monitor and (b) encourage the take-up of social security benefits by people who are entitled to them.


Answered by
Guy Opperman Portrait
Guy Opperman
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This question was answered on 18th March 2022

The Department works hard to ensure that people are in receipt of their full entitlement, communicating with the public about benefits through paid advertising, stakeholder and employer engagement and no cost campaigns to help people understand their entitlement and the support we can provide as a safety net and in times of need. We have made additional use of digital media such as YouTube videos, particularly British Sign Language videos to widely promote DWP benefits.

DWP staff in Jobcentres provide support and advice about entitlement to benefits and will signpost citizens to appropriate information to help them. The Department provides telephone service lines that citizens can call to make their claims to benefit and to operate their claims as well as a visiting service which can help vulnerable customers with their claims. Jobcentres have internet terminals for use by the public, and staff will signpost citizens to other community resources (libraries and Citizens Advice) which can also provide advice and internet access points.

The Government’s website, GOV.UK provides guidance on individual’s rights and entitlements to benefits in the UK. In particular, the website provides links to independent benefits calculators that can be used to find out what benefits an individual could get, how to claim and how these benefits will be affected if an individual starts work.

https://www.gov.uk/benefits-calculators

The independent benefits calculators we endorse are intended to provide useful estimations of what people could be entitled to in certain circumstances, based on the information that is entered on the calculators themselves.

Reticulating Splines