Money Box Live: Missing Out on Financial Support?

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Because Vivint adjusts your thermostat when it knows you're out, it's a smarter way to save. When Vivint guards your packages from Prowlers, it's a smarter way to protect. And when you can lock the doors and dim the lights for movie night with a single tap, Well, that's a smarter way to live. To get the smarter home system that just gets you, go to Vivint.com or call 1-855-4-VIVINT. Live intelligently.

Make money predicting football. Now you can. Now in Texas with Calci. Calci is the only platform that lets you legally trade on real world events in all 50 states from football to Bitcoin, the Oscars, and even politics. If it matters, you can trade on. Trade on who wins each game, props, spread, and more. Legally, now in Texas. Don't miss your shot. Download the Kalshi app or go to Kalshi.com. Use code PODCAST and get $10 when you trade on. This is an investment that carries risk. CalSheet.com.

Hello. People in the UK are missing out on £23 billion in financial support every single year. We now know that inflation was 1.7% in September. That means working-age benefits like Universal Credit are set to rise by only that much next spring. But a small increase, of course, is better than nothing at all. And a lot of people who are entitled to support don't actually claim any. We've been hearing a lot lately about pensioners missing out on pension credit.

There's also universal credit, social tariffs, cash for childcare and much more. So in this Moneybox Live podcast, we're taking a look at what you can claim, at why people don't and at how to check if you're missing out. Before we speak to our experts, though, let's hear from someone who didn't know what he was entitled to until he got some help.

Hi Moneybox, my name is Gary. I live in Bourne, rural Lincolnshire. My wife was diagnosed with a tumour in her spine cord, which was removed to result in her becoming disabled. As a result, I had to give up work to be her full-time carer. working since the age of 14 until my 50s. I've never claimed any benefits, so I didn't know what I could claim, where to go or who to speak to. When you're in these situations, there is no handbook handed to you. So turn to us.

Calculator made me aware I was able to claim carers allowance. I was able to get the reduction on my council tax and that I'd be eligible for universal credit. And there's lots of other things that we get as a benefit as well through my wife having a blue badge, which we only heard through word of mouth. it made me aware of the food banks and the helping towards heating that we were able to get without this me and my wife were we lost two household incomes

And we were absolutely destitute. Gary, thank you so much for that. Well, listening to Gary is Rachel Walker, Research Director at Policy and Practice, a social analytics company that works with councils and government. Rachel, thanks for being with us. Thank you. You did this research. You found that... £23 billion is going unclaimed. That's a massive number. I think Gary really illustrates just how essential that money can be. What kind of things are included?

Thanks. Yeah, so we find around 23 billion is missing from the welfare state. That's people are not claiming the money that they're eligible for. Around half of that is what we would call national benefits. So Department for Work and Pensions delivered benefits like universal credit, pension credit.

as Gary was saying, carers allowance and child benefit. That makes up around half, around £12 billion. £8 billion of that is universal credit. We've then got locally administered benefits, so reductions in council tax, again, like Gary was saying, housing benefit for pensioners, free school...

meals, healthy start. And then the third category is social tariffs and energy support. So water support, broadband support, warm homes discount and free TV licenses. Okay, now I noticed you didn't include disability benefits in that. So the actual...

that people are missing out on could be even higher. You're absolutely right, yes. We did a report last year that found £5.2 billion in attendance allowances unclaimed by around a million older people. The benefits that we've looked at as part of this research are income-related benefits rather than...

health-related benefits, but you're absolutely right. The number is much, much higher than that. So why? Why is so much support being missed? We know times have been tight recently. People have been needing that cash. Absolutely. Tends to fall into three categories. So awareness, you don't know what you don't know. So Gary was exactly saying, you know, he used an online benefit calculator through .gov.uk.

to understand his awareness. So even once you're in the system, we know that people aren't aware of the additional benefits that they can get. Once you're then aware of the benefits, the system can be very complex. So applying for any one of a number of different benefits, and bear in mind that a number of them require multiple applications.

People are approaching the system after major life events, after a new illness, losing a partner, having a child, moving house. We expect people to then navigate a very complex system. And the last reason, or the biggest reason really, is shame, stigma and fear. So there's a huge perception that we have that benefits equals failure on some personal level. There's a massive amount of stigma. I liken it to the NHS. We don't feel shame and stigma approaching.

the state for medical support why do we feel as a community nationally this this level of shame and stigma around financial support um but yeah shame and stigma have been discussed for hundreds of years and it's not going away

You mentioned the benefits calculator on gov.uk. I think Gary said he used the turn to us calculator. But yeah, there are a number out there. The Department for Work and Pensions told us people can check eligibility for benefits using benefit calculators on gov.uk or using the free help.

claim service from Citizens Advice. Briefly, Rachel, we do often hear about benefits cheats, people claiming who shouldn't be claiming. What you've just said suggests there's actually a massive issue with people not claiming. Absolutely. It's a much bigger issue, but not something that we talk about enough.

The DWP estimate around 2.8% of expenditure on benefits is liable to be fraud. And that's an estimate. It's not what they've found. It's what they think is in the system. And when we compare that 7.4 billion to the 23 billion that's missing or under... claimed.

the bigger issue is people are not getting the money that they're eligible for. OK, well, we are going to answer some questions about that today. Joining Rachel to do just that are people who work every day to help people get what they're due. I'm joined by Sam Hubbard, who's Head of Course Services at Citizens Advice. Staffordshire North and Stoke-on-Trent, and David Sampson, who's a benefits expert at the charity, turn to us. Hello.

Hi. Thank you both for being with us. David, turn to us. It's a national charity. It helps people get the support they need. Rachel's just mentioned that universal credit is the most underclaimed benefit. So can you explain to our listeners who gets that? Is it just for people on the very low? incomes? Well it is a benefit which is targeted at low income and I think one of the important points is that you can be both

out of work and in work to get universal credit. So a lot of people actually in full-time work qualify for universal credit. So very much a benefit available to people who are working as well. Sam, are benefit checks a big part of what you do? It's certainly a big area. We get lots of requests for people to check their entitlement which we would always encourage everybody to do. Lots of requests for help with disability benefit forms as well because of the complexity that's involved with them.

Which Rachel was just talking about a bit as well. OK, let's hear from a mother who says she didn't know how much help was out there. I'm Esther. I am a single mother of three children. Two of my children have complex needs, disabilities. They're both in nappies, even though they're seven years old. They don't speak. They have no self-help skills.

can't dress themselves. And I was working three jobs to try and support them. Then I found myself in a situation where I was completely burnt out and my doctor wanted to sign me off.

I desperately begged her, please don't sign me off because I need to work. I associated benefits with not working. And I'd always tell people I'm not a carer, I'm a mum. All of a sudden, I went from completely being paralysed with fear about how... going to survive to figuring out that i'm a carer and i'm entitled to the carers element of universal credit it meant that i went from working three jobs and essentially dropping the ball as a carer

Now I'm a lot more present because I'm not as stressed about putting food on the table. Esther, thank you so much for sharing that with us. Rachel, Esther was surprised to learn she would qualify for support. because she was working, she wouldn't. How typical is that perception?

Extremely typical. We know about 40% of people who claim universal credit are in work. People don't realise that you can. We do, we absolutely, we associate it with worklessness, with people who are, you know, the perceptions of people who aren't willing to work.

which is a very false perception, but also illness as well. We associate it with people who are very unwell or out of work, whereas 40% of people claiming universal credit are in work. And as we were saying earlier, even if you're working full time...

it's absolutely essential that you use a benefit calculator to see whether or not you would qualify. Sam, it really stood out to me as well that Esther mentioned being a more present parent once that financial worry was lessened. So I suppose getting the help that you're supposed to have has benefits beyond budgeting.

Absolutely. We see an increase in people's mental health once we've maximised their income via whether it's benefits advice or money advice. People feel that they can spend the time with their children. They feel less guilty. about having to leave their children in whilst they're out working and in Esther's case, as she said, having to have three separate jobs. It makes a big difference to how people feel and therefore their ability to care.

Well, Esther mentioned that she didn't know she was entitled to any help. The DWP told us there is support available in job centres and on gov.uk. And they also said that they regularly issue reminders to report changes in circumstances that might affect benefits. benefit entitlement. Rachel that's really good advice isn't it because changes in circumstances can also mean you stop being eligible for help. Do you think fear of making a mistake and owing money puts people off?

Absolutely it does. We've seen recently in the last few months the carer's allowance, people tripping just slightly over the income threshold or the amount that they're able to earn in order to qualify for carer's allowance and then losing all of their carer's allowance but not really being aware.

some dreadful stories of someone a 12 month suspended sentence for one person for example once you're in the system yes it's important to continue checking because as well as that being an issue we also know that people are under claiming so even once you're in the system there's about billion that's underclaimed so

But when we talk about changes in circumstances, it isn't always for the better. Sometimes health deteriorates and you're eligible for a higher rate of disability benefit, for example. Thank you. OK, well, quite a lot of the organisations that can help you navigate this have an online presence and lots of benefits. benefits are managed digitally as well. Let's hear from Gerard.

I had a lot of difficulties trying to claim for my benefits because I'm not computer literate. Then I discovered the community law service. The negative ball was in motion. Me and my wife were able to talk to people that knew how to claim things for us.

Gerard mentioned the Community Law Service there, which is one of 700 independent advice-giving organisations represented by Advice UK. Sam, it's tough, isn't it, for people to access the help they're entitled to if they don't have those digital skills?

We're finding increasingly people are excluded because it's digital by default. You mentioned earlier our national help to claim service. We are seeing with managed migration an increase in... clients who need assistance to make non-digital claims through that, which is something that we are feeding back.

But you automatically, if you want to try and make a benefit claim, it will direct you to digital first. I had a lady who called in the other day who... I needed her mobile phone number so she passed me her mobile phone and when I opened her mobile phone she had over a thousand messages on it because she didn't know how to use it and that's her only access.

to claiming. If you imagine if you're struggling financially and you don't have a good internet connection, if then you are trying to claim a disability benefit over your phone, which is over 100 questions, it's practically impossible.

Clive has been in touch. She's emailed moneybox at bbc.co.uk to say a similar thing, actually. He says, to what extent might underclaiming of benefits be due to many claimants not having access or confidence, access to or confidence in the internet? David, a lot... of those benefit calculators, including the Turn to Us benefit calculator, they're online. Is it harder to reach people like Gerard? Yes, because it's digital tools.

The only thing I could really say is that it's really, really important that people reach out for help and support from organisations like Citizens Advice. where they can get help to use these tools alongside an advisor and get expert advice on these issues if they are unable to manage online. Because that help is out there. It might just take a little bit longer to be...

able to access thank you okay well a lot of the help we've been talking about there is for people on the tightest incomes what about a scheme that parents earning anything up to £99,999 a year could benefit from here's a voice note from one listener Hi Moneybox Live, it's Mark. As a father of three we use an after-school club and holiday clubs but I still find parents who don't realise that they can use tax-free child care. to pay for it all.

It's a smallish saving, really, but it can help a lot. Mark, thank you very much for that. And you're absolutely right. Tax-free childcare is pretty widely underclaimed. HMRC tells us that they estimate 1.2 million families are eligible for the... help, less than half actually use it even though it means government support worth up to £2,000 a year per child. Now it's not just for nursery fees, you can use it on wraparound care, holiday clubs, even some extracurricular classes.

While I was on my own school run, I asked around to see if people were using it. Yes, I do. And do you use that for nursery costs? I see you've got a little one. Yeah, nursery. She's in full-time nursery, so I use it for that. Makes a big difference. Yes, it does. A massive difference. I think we save about £150 a month on average. So excuse me, hi.

Do you know about tax-free childcare? Yeah, we have looked into it and unfortunately we're not eligible for it. We used to be, but circumstances changed in the last couple of years. I mean, your face says it all. It doesn't really work on radio, but you look like you wish you were eligible. Yeah, it's just...

of those things that like we had it for a few years and partners income has increased so we don't get it anymore but when we did have it was a massive help yeah so do you know about tax-free child care No, I've not heard of it before. Do you use any wraparound care or holiday clubs? I do after school club with him on a Tuesday. Costs a lot of money, doesn't it? Yeah, it's not the cheapest.

Did you know tax-free childcare can mean that you get 20% of that cost back from the government, up to £2,000 a year per child? No, but it's very interesting to find out now. That dad at the end. Moneybox will give you advice, even if we have to chase you down and deliver it one person at a time. Sam, we're talking a lot about benefits. This isn't one. This is a scheme. This is essentially simply paying people back some of the tax they pay for the child. childcare that they need.

Absolutely. So basically what happens, you have an online account as long as you're using an approved registered childminder and then you can claim up to £500 every three months or up to £1,000 actually if your child is disabled. and basically every £8 you pay into your online account, the government will match with £2. You do have to be working. If you're partners, you both have to be working, earning just over £2,300.

pounds if you're over 21. Your child has to be under the age of 11 and that will be checked and you do have to be um have a right to reside for benefit purposes in the uk so either a british citizen or have access to public funds or settled or pre-settled status and rachel sam mentions there that the minimum you have to earning to use the scheme. But we heard from that one mum that you can earn too much.

You absolutely can, yeah. It is always worth checking on the benefit calculator. I know I keep repeating this because we really... It's good advice. If there's one thing we want people to take away, it's that you can get help online. You can check your eligibility for different benefits. But yes, she's absolutely...

right and childcare is an eye-watering cost and we don't associate these types of things with benefits but nor do we associate the state pension with the benefits so this is all state financial support for families and older people who need it yes but essentially if one of the parents earns a hundred a year or more, you can't qualify for that particular help. David, it's also, we should make clear, it's not suitable if you're on universal credit, is it?

No, so if you're getting tax credits or universal credits, then you're not entitled to tax-free childcare. In fact, if you claim tax-free childcare... Under on tax credits, you can lose your tax credits. So it's important to check that you can get benefit first, universal credit, or if you're already on tax credits, to check that out first.

before you look into tax-free childcare. Gov.uk actually have a calculator to check whether you can get tax-free childcare as well. Well, you can learn more about tax-free childcare, funded hours and other help with that particular cost by visiting...

the website childcarechoices.gov.uk. Now let's talk about pension credit. It's a benefit for those aged 66 or over who are on a low income. Numbers out just this month show that 760,000 people are missing out on this. And remember, it's also the only way to still get the winter fuel payment, which is worth £200 to £300 a year. Let's hear from Priscilla.

as I have been without the winter fuel allowance. And when that was cut and it said that you could have it if you were on pension credit, I thought, well, I'd better try again. It's nearly a third of my income. An extra £50 a week as the pension credit and I'm getting the winter fuel thing. I'm going to be able to survive much more happily.

Priscilla, thank you. Rachel, you can hear what a huge difference that's made to Priscilla. £50 more a week is more than £2,500 extra a year, plus, of course, the winter fuel payment on top of that. So why are the 760,000 people missing out on it?

That's a great question. Shame and stigma is something that the older community experience at higher rates, whether we also see greater rates of digital exclusion, you know, with online services, as we've been talking about, and again, a lack of awareness.

perception that benefits is for other people we also find older people do very well at just about managing you know we associate benefits with destitution and homelessness not living on a low income or surviving on the state pension now the winter fuel payment has done one for pension credit, you say, you know, 760,000 people are missing out. That was 850,000 not so long ago when the winter fuel permit changes were announced.

I have a little bee in my bonnet about it. It's £200 to £300, whereas the prize is pension credit. You know, that's the biggest amount of money that those pensions can get. But if losing £200 gets you an average of £3,900, which is around pension credit...

brilliant the wins we will take. The amount of pension credit of course that you get depends on a lot of other factors including your income. Sam the really key thing with pension credit is that it's known as a gateway benefit isn't it? There's other help that you can only access. once you're a claimant for pension credit.

Absolutely. Receiving either award of pension credit, either guaranteed or savings credit, opens the door for housing benefit, help with your mortgage if you've still got one, the winter fuel payment, the warm home discount, council tax reduction. If you're over 75, you can get a free TV licence. And what a lot of people don't realise is in some cases it can also help you with transport costs or your hospital appointments. Well, the DWP told us that it urges anyone who thinks they might be in...

We'll get the winter fuel allowance. However... He still needs more help, but he's too proud to claim attendance allowance. We've been assured he qualifies. Getting it would make a huge difference to him and be a great help to us. Tell us about attendance allowance and how you go about getting it.

so attendance allowance is a disability benefit it's not means tested so it's not based on your household income it's based on your care needs for it's looking at whether you need help with your physical care needs during the day during the night or if you need mental health support during the day or during the night. It's not a particularly easy claim form to do. We would allow a two-hour appointment with a qualified advisor to fill in an attendance allowance claim, but it opens the door to...

to so many other things. I mean, we've talked about pension credit and you can get additional allowances if you live by yourself and you're recognised as severely disabled. It is an absolute game changer and we would encourage everybody to apply. I can see Rachel nodding along with that. David, a lot of pensioners will just miss out on qualifying for pension credits. So they will still be on really tight incomes and not be able to get that extra.

help that comes with that other other forms of help that they could potentially apply for yes I mean I think it's really important that again that they do a calculation if they've got access digital access to a calculator to a calculator because there might be other benefits they could get as well. I think it's important to check that because a lot of people think that they can't get pension credit because they might have savings, but some people can. So I think that's really, really important.

as well. there's all manner of things as as rachel has already discussed there's a whole range of um help out there in terms of um uh social tariffs and help with water bills and things like that, I think, which you need to look into, particularly if you've got a disability or if you're an older person. We'll come on to those in just a moment, but I suppose one thing we should take...

away from this is we're talking about people who might be digitally excluded if you know someone and you can go around with with your laptop or with a phone perhaps and and use some of these online tools that could be really helpful uh right rachel david mentions um social tariffs there. We've talked a lot about the state support that makes up some of that £23 billion number, but some of it is things like social tariffs. So just explain what's meant by that.

Social tariffs cover areas such as utilities, water, broadband, and for people of the age of 75, free TV licenses. It's helped towards the utilities and services that you might... receive um otherwise and it's it's generally either a discount or um money off or a bit like the warm homes discount or the winter fuel payment it may be a lump sum and do we know how much people are missing out on or is that a harder sum to do no no no it's it's uh

We know, for example, there's just short of a billion pounds missing in water tariffs because we know that people aren't aware of them. It can be complex to claim. All of the standard reasons that we know people aren't claiming. But we also know, I mean, broadband in particular, 95%.

of people who are eligible do not claim broadband social tariff. 95%? Yes, 95%. That's barely being used at all. Thank you for telling us that. Sam, social tariffs for energy bills, they were replaced by the warm home discount. Can you explain what that is and who gets that? So Warm Home Discount is £150 one-off payment made to your supplier, usually your electricity supplier, but you can change it to your gas supplier if you need to.

It's available to those on guaranteed pension credit or on a low income. with high fuel costs. So low income, they're talking about other means-tested benefits, really. Thank you. Right, this has been a bit of a race, a bit of a gallop through lots of different information. We're screaming towards the end of the podcast.

program i'll tell you what we'll go around and you can each suggest one more scheme or benefit that people might not know they could qualify for rachel what would be your your top recommendation

I've already talked about broadband social tariffs, but I'm going to say it again. Broadband social tariffs, the access to the internet is less and less of an age-related issue and more and more of an economic inequality. And we would massively encourage people to explore broadband social tariffs. Sam, what's...

the the one thing you'd like people to maybe go away and look up? We've talked about attendance allowance but there are other disability benefits so DLA disability living allowance for children under 16 and personal independence payments for those of a working age. David? Yes, I was going to say that. I was going to say personal independence payment and the other disability benefits such as attendance allowance.

really, really important because you can also get other things as a result of those benefits. Thank you. Sam, I'm going to put a question from a Sam to you. Sam has emailed to say, I was working as a teacher but have now been off sick for a few months.

My year's contract has come to an end. I'm unable to work due to ongoing tests. I have no income, so I've applied for employment and support allowance. I don't think I can apply for anything else. My husband doesn't earn a huge amount, but I think too much for us to apply for universal. Now, I know it's hard to give out advice on the limited information we can fit in an email we read out, but what kinds of things should Sam be thinking about?

I would definitely check universal credit as a start point, just make sure. And then if she's under pension aid, she'd be looking at personal independence payments. If that's successful, then that can lead on potentially to an award of universal. or credit, were she to get personal independence payments, her partner could potentially claim carers allowance, look at council tax reduction, look and investigate all the social tariffs available to her and if she is struggling then contact

an agency for support with debts should she need to. So she's not stretching the reduced income further than it needs to go. And Sam, for anyone, we touched on the stigma that some people feel. For anyone who does feel awkward or feels that... there is a stigma to applying for some extra help. What would you say to them? Please just check.

Benefit rates increased quite a large amount in April. So if you've not done a check since April, I'd recommend doing one of those now. Contact your local citizen's advice. We're completely independent. We're completely confidential. We won't share your information. with anybody else it is then your choice whether you want to go and make the claim but please just check first. Rachel what would you say to somebody who feels that that sense that they shouldn't be applying for benefits?

We don't associate, we don't have those feelings about the state pension. We don't have those feelings about the NHS. This is a third form of support that we can claim from the government. I would absolutely love to normalise claiming financial help.

You're not alone. People like you are claiming. Rachel, thank you. Well, that is all we've got time for in this Moneybox Live podcast. But it's clearly worth making time to see if you could get any extra help. Thank you to everybody who took part today. And thank you.

course, to our experts. I was joined by Rachel Walker from Policy and Practice, David Sampson from Turn to Us, and Sam Hubbard from the Citizens Advice Staffordshire North and Stoke-on-Trent. If there's an issue that you would like us to take a look at, then please do get in touch. or you can send us a WhatsApp message or voice note to 033-06-783-183.

In this podcast, the producer was Craig Henderson, the studio manager James West, our editor was Sarah Rogers. I'm Felicity Hanna and this was a BBC News Money and Work production for BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Amol Rajan. And I'm Nick Robinson, and from BBC Radio 4, this is the Today Podcast.

And Nick, this is the moment to ask you what you most enjoy about spending a couple of hours in my company each week. Well, that would be enough in itself. But the fun is to go in depth on a story with an expert guest. And for you and I to... Try and really get what's going on. I have CCTV on my home. I've had people rip my gates down. Is it worth it? Andrea, being an MP, on no occasion did the scan that I'd had ever appear.

in the other hospital so what do you enjoy most about doing i love the fact that we've got a really strong sense of community and yes i love some of our star guests too frank skinner This is why we need tinned applause. I'm going to clap as well just to thicken it up. Listen and subscribe on BBC Sounds. Through frontline reporting, global stories and local insights, we bring you closer to the world's news as it happens. from the BBC. Find out more at BBC.com.

Make money predicting football. Now you can now in Texas with Cal, she is the only platform that lets you legally trade on real world events in all 50 States from football to Bitcoin, the Oscars, and even politics. If it matters, you can trade on. Trade on who wins each game, props, spread, and more. Legally, now in Texas. Don't miss your shot. Download the Kalshi app or go to K-A-L-S-H-I dot com. Use code PODCAST and get $10 when you trade on.

This is an investment that carries risk. CalSheet.com.