How a benefits unit in Devon is ensuring families receive their full entitlement

Project: Devon Quids for Kids

Funding: About £113,000 a year from Devon County Council’s children and families service

Purpose: To ensure families with children with special needs gain the financial support they are entitled to

Background: Back in 2000, Devon Welfare Rights Unit undertook work to ensure vulnerable people were claiming the benefits to which they were entitled. One project in Exeter focused on families with children with special educational needs.

“We were shocked to find more than half weren’t getting their benefits,” says manager of the unit Nora Corkery. “Yet these weren’t hard-to-reach families but families very much in the system and in regular contact with health, social services and others. Clearly no one was looking at families’ income.”

Action: The Devon Quids for Kids scheme was launched in 2005 as a specialist welfare rights and money advice service for families with a child or young person younger than 22 with a disability or other special need. It is run by Devon Welfare Rights Unit, part of the charity Citizens Advice, working with local Citizens Advice Bureaux (CABs), and funded by Devon County Council.

There are a range of reasons why families might not be claiming benefits, explains Corkery. “Often parents are just too busy being full-time carers,” she says. “Or they’re so stressed and overstretched they feel they just can’t deal with it at the moment. We found a lot of families getting disability living allowance were on the wrong rate, but hadn’t thought to question it because they were getting something.”

The service, which also runs advice surgeries at children’s centres and special schools, has helped ensure the issue of income and benefits is addressed in a systematic way.

The unit has access to the Joint Agency Record of children with disabilities managed by health and social care services. Whenever a child is added to the register the family is automatically offered a benefit check. This sharing of information is a crucial part of the scheme’s success, says Corkery, who explains that benefit checks are now seen as part of the wider assessment process with families referred to the service by a range of professionals.

The service is widely publicised in venues such as children’s centres, community centres and health clinics, and families are encouraged to self-refer.

When a referral comes in, the family’s basic details are logged and they then get a phone call from a specialist CAB welfare rights officer who takes more detailed information about their circumstances. Families who are claiming all they are entitled to gain reassurances. More complicated cases and those where families could be missing out lead to a home visit. “The fact we go out to people’s homes is crucial,” says Corkery. “People are so relieved to discover that we can come to them at a time that suits them.”

Three workers deal with about a dozen new referrals each week and follow cases through, including helping to appeal decisions.

Outcome: From 2005 to 2011 the scheme helped obtain more than £7m in additional benefits – an average of more than £5,400 per family.

The service’s interim annual report for April 2011 to March 2012 shows it generated additional benefits and tax credits totalling £1.02m. In that period it dealt with 583 referrals – 398 were families accessing the service for the first time while 185 had previously contacted the service.

A total of 182 families were awarded extra benefit income – an average of more than £5,600 per family. The additional income generated comprised £131,328 carers allowance; £167,953 tax credits; £40,042 incapacity benefit/employment support allowance; £19,324 income support; £637,114 disability living allowance; and £27,974 in lump sums. The service is set to play a central role in testing personal budgets for disabled children in Devon.