Over the last few months, I have been researching welfare benefits entitlements in the UK.  (You can see all my earlier posts by clicking on “Welfare Benefits” in the TAG CLOUD).  

The whole subject is immensely confusing and not at all helped by the frequent changes in the benefit system and the “titles” of individual benefits.  More and more benefits information is promoted through the internet, which makes it less and less available to the many older people who do not use the internet.  It is no surprise at all therefore, that a large amount of welfare benefits go unclaimed by many older people who are entitled to them.

In March I carried out a survey with the help of a small group of older people in Coventry.  It was more of a focus group than a survey and I don’t pretend that it represents anything other than a sample group, which may not be representative of all older people in Coventry.  Nonetheless, the results seem to reflect the picture shown by other analysis of the subject.

The results are split into four sections:-

• Main Benefits
• Disability Benefits
• Weather Payments
• Benefit Freebies

I will publish the results in these four sections over the next two weeks.