Benefits

Welcome to Benefits Online, where you can find clear and concise information on UK benefits and have your say in our open forums, whether it's seeking advice, connecting with others or getting your voice heard.

Benefits are a life line for many people in the UK, some are on them for the long term and for others it's a temporary solution whilst in between jobs or working towards a higher salary, either way they are an essential part of life for many people in Britain.

The goal of this website is to be an easy source of information for benefits, whether you are already claiming, looking at making a new claim or would just like to know more, please feel free to use all the information on this website as well as our free benefits forum.

Benefits in the UK

In the UK around 30 million people claim one or more benefits which account for a yearly spend of around £188,000,000,000 (£188bn) which is about 28% of the governments expenditure and by far its biggest outlay. The benefit which is claimed the most is retirement pensions which make up over 35% of total benefits expenditure, this is followed by Housing Benefit and Child Tax Credit, here is a list of the top 5 benefits:

• Retirement Pensions
• Housing Benefit
• Child Tax Credit
• Child Benefit
• Disability Living Allowance

Benefits | The 6 main Category's

There are 6 main category's of benefits in the UK of which each benefit belongs to, these category's are as follows:

• Families with children
• Unemployed people
• Those on low incomes
• Elderly people
• Sick and disabled people
• Bereaved people

Below is a chart showing the size of each category, in proportion to each other, you can see that by far the biggest is Elderly People, which includes Pensions, and a relatively small amount is unemployment, which includes benefits such as Jobseekers Allowance.

Benefits | All in one place.

There are over 40 different benefits which make up these 6 category's listed above, for example within “Families and Children” there are 7 separate benefits which you may be eligible to claim. This website has a dedicated page for each benefit, with all the information you need in one easy to access place with information such as rates, eligibility, requirements, forms, phone numbers and more all on the same page, taking away the need to click through multiple links and pages to find what you are after. This all-in-one place approach together with the clear layouts and ability to change the text size in the top left column, makes it easy to find and use the information you are after even for those who may be partially sighted, have limiting disabilities or just not that familiar with the Internet.

To find the benefit you are searching for you can either use the vertical menu in the left column, or you can use the main menu above this article, which breaks benefits down into their category's or you can use the advanced site search feature which is in the top of the right column, just input the name of the benefit you are searching for, or any word or phrase, hit enter on your keyboard and the relevant pages will be found up for you.

Claiming Benefits

If you are considering making a new claim for benefits, the first thing to do is to go to the correct benefits page and read through it to make sure it is for you and to check if you are eligible and meet the requirements to claim that particular one, once you are satisfied that you are, at the end of that page there are forms and phone numbers and details on how to claim, sometimes this can be done completely online, sometimes by phone and other times a form needs to be physically filled out and posted to the relevant place. All the details are provided with free numbers where possible.

Benefits Forum

Another useful feature of Benefits Online is the benefits forum, registration is free and there is a lobby for each category where advice can be sought, knowledge can be shared and ideas formulated. There are also some other interesting lobby's for things such as making money online and also one for getting changes made to the benefits system, where new ideas can be discussed, petitions can be created and with enough support, positive changes to the benefits system can become a potential ~ this is a highly visible forum so if you want to get your voice heard, come and start a petition, promote it here, spread it via the social networks and rally support, there is much power in numbers.

Benefits Online

So we hope you find Benefits Online useful, if you have something to say feel free to use the forums or contact us via the contact page, if you would like to see more features or information on this website, then let us know we are always keen to add more content. This is a public site and we hope it grows into something which adds real value to peoples lives.

Thanks & Best Wishes

The Benefits Online Team