Benefits

Public and third sector information services

GOV.UK provides extensive information on benefits, covering how benefits work, universal credit, tax credits, jobseeker’s allowance and low income benefits, carers and disability benefits, child benefit, benefits for families, heating and housing benefits, and death and benefits.

Citizens AdviceCitizens Advice provides extensive information on benefits, if you are working or unemployed, sick or disabled, a parent, a young person, an older person or a veteran. There is also information about council tax and housing costs, national insurance, payment of benefits and problems with benefits. The site also provides and other resources and tools to help.

AdvicenowAdvicenow offers information top picks for benefits, sourced from the best providers, to help you work out which benefits or tax credits you could claim, and to help you deal with thorny benefit issues if they arise.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for welfare, pensions and child maintenance policy. As the UK’s biggest public service department it administers the State Pension and a range of working age, disability and ill health benefits to around 20 million claimants and customers.

Find an adviser

Contact Citizens Advice to speak to someone in person by phone or online chat. You can get free advice for simple problems and they can recommend advisers if your situation is more complex. They also provide information on finding free or affordable legal help.

Find your local Law Centre on the Law Centres Network. All Law Centres offer face-to-face legal advice to local residents, and some run a telephone advice line. All Law Centres specialise in social welfare law.

Find a clinic on the LawWorks Clinics Network which provides free initial advice to individuals on various areas of social welfare law.

Use the Law Society’s Find a Solicitor page to find solicitors in England and Wales.

Use the Law Society of Scotland’s Find a Solicitor page.

Use the Law Society of Northern Ireland’s Solicitor Directory.

Other useful resources

Benefits and Work is a site run by Steve Donnison , a freelance welfare benefits trainer and writer. He provides free, very detailed, step-by-step, downloadable guides to claiming disability and incapacity benefits. He also provides very competitively priced welfare benefits and employment law training courses.

Durham Legal Services is the UK’s leading independent provider of Child Maintenance Service Advice and Child Support Agency Advice. They give free advice and can also take on cases on a paying basis.

Ferret Information Systems was established in 1987 and is the largest company in Europe in the field of law dealing with welfare benefits and similar areas of determinative, compliance, and regulatory law.