Families with disabled children are missing out on benefits

Families with disabled children are missing out on significant amounts of benefits due to bureaucracy and a lack of information, a report today claims.

Charities the Child Poverty Action Group, Contact a Family and One Parent Families found almost half of parents surveyed believed they had missed out on benefits or tax credits because they were not told they were eligible.

It also found almost 40 per cent had been put off applying because of claim forms and 30 per cent had not had advice about benefits entitlement for over a year.

The study, Out of Reach, said the government would not meet its target of halving child poverty by 2010 without a strategy to increase benefits take-up for this group, for instance through targeted benefits advice services.