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Neil Bateman explains how to find out who qualifies for the minimum income guarantee for pensioners.

The minimum income guarantee (MIG) for pensioners is nothing more or less than income support for people aged 60 or over. The government's insistence on using the MIG word has added to the confusion about entitlement and bearing in mind that people usually have only a very hazy idea about benefit entitlement, even a minor change in benefit titles erects yet another barrier to maximising take-up.

And, of course, more change is in the pipeline with pension credit coming of age in April 2003. Pension credit is going to be a very different benefit and not just another name for income support. Indeed, about double the number receiving MIG are expected to qualify for pension credit. This means that the challenge to maximise take-up will be greater than ever and local authorities' track record in improving take-up of benefits by older people stands them in good stead to make real inroads into pensioner poverty as a result.

In terms of getting to grips with MIG at the moment, the Department for Work and Pensions recently published a short leaflet that explains MIG. This leaflet is very different to most it produces because there was extensive input by welfare rights workers to it - including myself and Gary Vaux, my other half on this column.

The leaflet is designed to be used as part of take-up work (for example, piggy-backing with housing benefit letters or as part of a computer scan to identify under-claimers) as well as giving general information about entitlement.

However, MIG is as complicated as any other part of income support and to give any advice you do need more information - the Child Poverty Action Group's Welfare Benefits Handbook and the Disability Alliance's Disability Rights Handbook being the recommended sources.

The number of people entitled to MIG increased by about 50,000 last April when the capital limit for people living in the community was raised to £12,000 and we also saw very significant increases in the rates payable. Together with increases during previous years, the poorest pensioners have seen their incomes rise by about 25 per cent in real terms, the best improvement in living memory.

Paradoxically, as the levels rise and the number entitled rises alongside this, the number who are missing out also rises. So tackling pensioner poverty through increasing means-tested benefits results in even more effort having to be put into take-up activity.

As social care practitioners are seeing people who live in poverty every day of their working lives, the chances are that a significant proportion of your customers are among those missing out.

But the incentive to maximise take-up is even stronger than just some evangelistic notion of tackling poverty. The social services Standard Spending Assessment includes a weighting for the number of pensioners on income support - even just getting someone a pound or two a week will pay dividends to your council's financial position. And as most councils are now doing work on pensioner take-up, the laggards miss out even more because of the way the Standard Spending Assessment affects government grants to councils.

- You can get the leaflet by ringing 0845 6065065. Child Poverty Action Grouphandbooks can be found at www.cpag.org.uk and the Disability Rights Handbook at www.disabilityalliance.org  

Neil Bateman is performance management manager for Connexions Suffolk. If you have a question to be answered in Welfare Rights please write to him c/o Community Care.