Benefits

• Charity warns councils are depriving four million older people of benefits

  Nearly four million older people are being denied access to key benefits because they do not use computers, according to campaigners.

  

• Call for more support for young people living independently

  The Government must do more to support young people who are living independently, MPs say.

  

• Carers face benefit ‘cliff-edge’, MPs warn

  MPs have called on the Government to remove the ‘cliff-edge’ in the benefit calculation that could see many carers lose their allowance.

  

• Whitehall extends Universal Credit support to ‘kinship carers’

  The Government has announced it would be extending support under Universal Credit to families looking after children who might otherwise be in the care of the local authority.

  

• Residents miss benefit payments due to ‘system error’

  A system error last Friday left around 1,000 residents of West Dunbartonshire without housing benefit.

  

• Only 4.3% of government housing subsidy spent on new homes

  More than 95% of the government’s housing subsidy was spent on housing benefit and support for mortgage interest, new analysis has revealed.

  

• Government cuts force over a million children into poverty

  One and a half million more children will be in poverty by 2022 due to the Government’s austerity agenda, commission reveals.

  

• Scottish households on low income ‘missing out’ on tax exemption

  Fewer than 4% of Scottish households eligible for council tax exemption are claiming the new benefit, research reveals.

  

• MPs warn of 'pervasive lack of trust' in way disability benefits are assessed

  Failures in the way major disability benefits are being assessed have led to a loss of trust in the system, MPs have warned today.

  

• Child poverty charities call for end to benefit freeze

  Child poverty charities are calling for an end to the benefit freeze as new figures reveal in some areas over half the children are growing up in poverty.