Ongoing News

The government say 'To be eligible to receive free school meals (FSM), a pupil or their parent must be in receipt of any one of the following listed benefits and must make a claim to the school for FSM:

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has reported-

● by 2017 8 million people in the UK living in working households were in relative poverty.
● Between 1994 and 2017 there was an increase from 13% to 18% in the proportion of people in working households living in relative poverty (that’s an increase of 40%).

The government say

The amount of appeals have been falling over the last few years. Encourage your clients to challenge decisions success rates are high. We've picked out some of the main types by benefit from the latest statistics-

If a client has unexpected financial hardship, then they can defer repayment of an advance they have have.

We have some spare stocks this year of our colour 2019/2020 Benefit Rates Poster for Professionals and would like to offer you up to 12 free copies.

For free hard copies- Just send an A4 SAE with postage(£1.72 second class/ £1.97 first class) to us at:

During our recent training, lots of you have been talking about one of the big issues with the Universal Credit system;  that most (57%) of clients do not receive their full amount of Universal Credit because of deductions.

UC Natural/ Managed Migration Figures Revealed-

Generally not- Amber Rudd, The Work and Pensions Secretary, has announced 'We will no longer regularly review the PIP awards for claimants who have reached State Pension age, unless they tell us that their needs have changed.'

The vast majority of Benefits are paid correctly. The total yearly DWP Benefit bill averaged for the measured period was £183.5 billion.

Generally, clients need to act in time to challenge decisions by mandatory reconsideration and appeal- within one month(or exceptionally up to 13 months after the decision).

The government has explained-

The government has issued guidance to local authorities-

The DWP has detailed some of the help available for prisoners when they come out of prison and have to negotiate the Universal Credit system-

The government is creating a Pensions Dashboard to help with planning retirement-