How is the Welsh Government improving awareness of benefits entitlement, in light of the report by Policy in Practice which shows that an estimated £22.7 billion a year goes unclaimed in Great Britain?
The Welsh Government is committed to ensuring people in Wales claim every pound to which they are entitled and has a well-established Income Maximisation Stakeholder Group to drive the work forward. The outcomes from our various income maximisation projects demonstrate we are helping people to overcome the barriers they face such as lack of awareness and dealing with complexity. For example:
- The Welsh Government’s Claim What’s Yours national take-up campaign encourages people who do not usually access advice service to check their eligibility for welfare benefits and get the support they need to make their claim. From April 2023 to March 2024, Claim What’s Yours advisors helped 36,800 people to claim £10.4m in additional income.
- Everyone accessing the Welsh Government’s Single Advice Fund (SAF) services is offered a welfare benefit entitlement check, regardless of the reason they are seeking advice. Since January 2020 people accessing a SAF service have been helped to claim £137m of additional income.
- From April 2023 to March 2024, 1,400 frontline workers attended a Welsh Government funded training session on the financial support that is available to their service users with 50% of frontline workers confirming they have used their increased knowledge to help service users claim additional income.
- In January 2024 the Welsh Benefits Charter was published and endorsed by all 22 Local Authorities. The Streamlining Welsh Benefits Steering Group is now developing an implementation plan to simplify access to Welsh Benefits.
We are delivering good results with our income maximisation projects in Wales. However, if UK Government took a strategic lead on a national take-up campaign, which includes awareness raising, access to advice and support and data sharing arrangements this would improve the situation across Wales and the UK.
Promotion and awareness raising is only part of the solution in increasing take-up of benefits and some people will require support in making the claim itself. I urge the UK Government to consider funding an expanded service like the one that is helping people to claim Universal Credit to claim other benefits that are underclaimed such as Pension Credit.