§ Mr. PikeTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how much information is readily available to new claimants on what benefits they are entitled to and the processes involved; and what estimates are available as to how many people do not claim everything to which they are entitled.
§ Mr. BurtThis Department produces more than 130 leaflets, many in a number of languages, which provide information on the full range of social security benefits and details of how to claim. Leaflets are readily available at all Benefits Agency offices and post offices and are also supplied to many intermediary organisations such as the citizens advice bureaux. Information is also available in other formats such as Braille, audio cassette and video.
In addition, the Benefits Agency undertakes a wide range of initiatives to increase awareness of entitlement such as exhibitions, liaison with customers and their representatives and the operation of multilingual freelines.
The numbers taking up their entitlement are not uniform among benefits available. For most of the main contributory benefits such as widows' benefit, retirement pension, unemployment benefit and for child benefit, take-up is thought to be close to 100 per cent. The latest estimates for the take-up of income related benefits indicate that around £9 of every £10 of available benefit is claimed by more than four out of every five eligible to claim. These estimates are for 1991 and were published on 25 March 1994 in "Income Related Benefits—Estimates of Take-up in 1990 and 1991", a copy of which is in the Library.