'Life-changing' £90,000 worth of extra benefits found for claimants in Wakefield, Citizen's Advice says

A series of events, run by organisations including Citizen's Advice, have been taking place across the district to help people claim cash they either didn't know they were entitled to, or have been wrongly refused.

Provisional figures from the first six events have shown 47 people have been able to claim around £90,000 extra between them.

Simon Topham, CEO of Citizen's Advice Wakefield said the free benefit checks were proving helpful.

Revealing the figures at a local health and wellbeing board meeting on Thursday, he said: "It doesn't sounds like a lot of money, but when you look at the potential outcomes for those individuals, it's life-changing.

"We've not had vast numbers of people in, but it's about quality and not just quantity.

"If a few hundred people can have that kind of outcome it's really important."

Mr Topham said that one disabled client, who'd been refused Personal Independence Payment (PIP), had attended one of the events to ask for help with her appeal.

He said he was confident the appeal would be successful, and that the woman could receive a payout of more than £9,000 if it is.

Local Democracy Reporting Service