Getting Advice About Benefits
Where can I get advice about benefits face to face?
If you wanted face-to-face advice about benefits, then a good starting place would be your local Citizens Advice Bureau, because there is a lot of wide coverage of CABs up and down the country. More specific advice agencies have fairly wide coverage organization, such as Age Concern, if you're an older person. There are disability advice organizations or centers. There are the statuatory organizations such as Jobcentre Plus if you wanted to know about working age benefits, and also specific charities quite often can provide advice. If you were disabled and you had a specific illness, maybe Diabetes UK or the MS society, they may be able to give you advice about benefits.
Is there a benefit advice line?
If you are looking for advice on benefits, there is no one benefit line. There are Jobcentre Plus contact centers, which there is now one 0800 number for the country, but that's only for working age benefits that are paid by the Department for Work and Pensions. The Pension Service runs a line for benefits for older people, so if you are an older person you could contact the Pension Service. There is an advice line run by the Community Legal Service, called CLS Direct, but you have to be eligible for legal aid help to be able to get full advice from that line. There is the advice guide website that Citizens Advice have, but unfortunately there is no one central benefits line that is right across the board for all claimants. No.