Benefits take-up must be improved to tackle poverty through ambitious Government targets, as more than £16 billion of means-tested benefits and tax credits go unclaimed each year, charities have said.

A coalition of 27 charities urged the Government to do more to make sure money earmarked for those people in greatest need reaches them.

Writing to Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper, they said up to three million households are thought to be missing out on council tax benefit and 1.7 million pensioners not claiming the pensions credit which would boost incomes £31 a week on average.

As many as four out of five low-paid workers without children missed out on tax credits worth at least £38 a week, and half of working households entitled to housing benefit, worth an average of £37.60 a week, do not claim it.

The coalition, which includes Citizens Advice, Save the Children and Age Concern and Help the Aged, also stressed the need for adequate incomes provision.

It said housing and council tax benefit take-up fell in the last decade, and child tax credit is around 10% lower among people from ethnic minorities.

Copyright © Press Association 2010

• Email to a friend

  To:

  Bcc:

  Your email address:

  Message:
• Print version
• Plain text