Open Writing

I am contemplating setting out on the trail of the 'missing billions.' But before you picture me hot on the trail of a stash of cash hidden by some outlaw ancestor, or completing a bestseller to rival J.K. Rowling, I'd better put you in the picture. Because once I do you'll probably want to join me.

The missing billions I'm talking about aren't hidden in Swiss bank accounts or in a tin box in a garden. Oh no, the billions I'm after are the £2.5 billion of unclaimed benefits cash, estimated by Age Concern to be sitting in the Government's coffers (and earning a nice bit of interest) while millions of pensioners struggle to make ends meet.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not after those billions for myself - well not just yet anyway, although if we all have to work until we're 75 I may well need to claim. No, I'm considering claiming on behalf of a relative who is completely incapable of claiming for herself.

And that, in a nutshell, is why all those billions are still in the Government's coffers and not in pensioner's purses where they belong. It's the claiming process that's the problem.

The forms you have to fill in, or persuade someone to fill in on your behalf to claim many benefits, are complicated, intrusive and many pages long. Would-be claimants also have to provide bank and building society books, driving licences or passports, which many old people do not possess - how many world travellers are there in the 80-plus age group? - or birth certificates.

Now Mr C and I consider ourselves to be reasonably well-educated, thanks to the old grammar school system, and we both have jobs that require us to fill in forms, make telephone enquiries and cope with computer basics. In fact brainy Mr C was considered Oxbridge material by his old school, so you'd think we'd have no trouble with a few forms.

Well you'd be wrong! In fact if it wasn't for the fantastic staff at the local housing office we'd probably still be trying to fill in our relation's Housing and Council Tax Benefit forms today.

Perhaps that's why so many claims fall at the first hurdle. Perhaps that's why the Government admits that every year almost £750 million in Council Tax Benefit goes unclaimed with some 1.7million households missing out. You don't need a form-filling degree to claim but it'd probably help!

We did consider making another claim for the much-publicised Pension Credit - until we were advised that what we may gain, if eligible, would probably result in a reduction in another benefit, so what we gained on the swings we'd lose on the roundabouts. We'd also lose a lot of precious time and energy filling in forms and making phone calls.

A spokesman for Help the Aged warned in one national newspaper that 'Means-tested Benefits chance at the whim of the Chancellor of the day, which makes a mess of long-term financial planning.'

He said that two years ago the National Audit Office said there were 23 different benefits for elderly people, 16 of which were connected to each other in 30 different ways. Today there are 35 such benefits besides the state pension.

Both Age Concern and Help the Aged warn that one of the most complicated and obscure benefits is Attendance Allowance, with a long form to fill in to claim help if you are ill or disabled. They say that this form requires a good deal of difficult analysis by people who may be old, ill, disabled or confused.

It seems that the older you are and the more help you need the less able you will be to grapple with the forms to claim it, or meet people who can tell you what benefits are available in the first place.

Take heart, help is at hand from organisations like Age Concern, who do a marvellous job nationally and locally, providing practical help, lobbying the Government and employing benefits advisors to assist you with claims.

So why not contact them and join me in the hunt for the missing billions that you or your relatives or friends should have in their pockets instead of the Government's - Good Luck and good hunting!