Income and benefits

One of the key aims of our Strategy for Older People is:

‘to promote and develop older people's capacity to continue to work and learn for as long as they want, and to make an active contribution once they retire’.

A related objective is:

‘to develop and promote policies and programmes to tackle poverty and social exclusion amongst older people’. 

Income maximisation and benefit take-up

People on low incomes consistently fail to claim all of the benefits and tax credits that they are entitled to receive. In other words those people who can least afford to do so are failing to maximise their potential income. Income maximisation, which includes increased benefit take-up, features as one of the five key themes of our Financial Inclusion Strategy for Wales.

Council Tax Benefit and Housing Benefit

Actions the Assembly Government has taken include an allocation of £1m a year until 2011 to local authorities to further support the take-up of Council Tax and Housing Benefit. Across Wales as a whole, approximately 7,000 more over-60s claimed Council Tax Benefit between May 2005 and February 2007. At an average of £12 per week being claimed, that amounted to an extra £4.3m per annum being paid out in benefit.

In addition to this funding the Welsh Government set up a working group to research the barriers to Council Tax Benefit take-up in Wales and to highlight and promote best practice, based on the experience of the local authorities that have successfully increased Council Tax Benefit take-up in recent years.

The figures indicate that take-up of Housing Benefit is higher than that for Council Tax Benefit. The application form for Housing Benefit, which is only available to people who live in rented accommodation, normally covers both benefits. Therefore eligibility for Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit would be assessed at the same time.

This means that people living in rented accommodation are much more likely to claim Council Tax Benefit than home-owners. Since most older people are homeowners many are missing out on Council Tax Benefit.

One-Stop Service Centres: Link-Age in Wales

The vision is that older people or people seeking advice on behalf of an older person should have easy access in their local area to information about the full range of services available. This will be either through a single access point, or several access points that can offer advice across a range of issues.

In November 2005, the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services launched Link-Age in Wales, which aims to achieve this. Link-Age in Wales is an initiative led by the Department of Work and Pensions in collaboration with the Welsh Government.

For information on benefits, tax and tax credits, pensions and retirement, and savings and investments visit DirectGov.