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As we come up to the finishing line, the polls have barely moved, the two main contenders may not have excited us much with their ambition and people could be forgiven for thinking there isn’t that much of a difference between them.

But in a spirit of open research – I thought I’d take a closer look at what each of the parties are offering when it comes to promises around benefits and our mutual social security.

And it seems there are real differences to choose from. Even if Labour may disappoint those seeking a turning back of some of the hardest hitting cuts and changes of the last 14 years, the Conservatives have certainly not run out of ideas and cutting zeal. The real difference – if there is a change in tenancy in Downing Street – may not lie in what Labour would do as they go for cautious, constrained and costed promises. Rather it would lie in what they would not do with the Tory proposals to cut £12 billion mainly from benefits for the sick and disabled and ramping up sanctions and benefit cut offs around work conditionality.

You can read my summary of what’s on offer and some reflections on the choices and why voting can make a difference in my article Myths and Millions: Benefits and the General Election 2024

As Easter 2023 approaches, there is some welcome relief to help with the cost of living crisis that will shortly appearing in any benefits payments that you get if they haven’t already:

• The new 2023/24 benefit rates apply from Monday 3rd April, closing some of the gap opened up by the time lag in the way benefits uprated. A 10.1% increase (based on the annual CPI inflation rate at September 2022) will bring benefit rates closer to where they need to be after the huge jump in prices triggered in February 2022 It may take tuntil next year to complete the catch up with amounts back in 2020. You can download our chart of the new rates from https://bigbookofbenefits.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/benefit-rates-2023-24-steps.pdf
• You can also dowload Part 2 of the Updater Pack for your copy of the Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health 2021-23 . This Part 2 brings your Big Book up to date with all the other benefit changes (apart from the rates right up to the Budget and White Paper announcements in March 2023. It’s available at: https://bigbookofbenefits.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/bbbmh-2021-23-updater-pack-2-march-2023.pdf
• A new Part 3 to follow soon will bring all the pages with rates and sums on them up to the 2023/24 rates.
• Other good news.: extra Cost of living Payments continue for 2023/24: If you get a means tested benefit such as UC, Pension Credit or one of the legacy benefits (such as Income-related ESA) you should get an extra £900 over the year. The first payment coes out as £301 between 25th April and 17th May 2023. Others will follow in Autumn 2023 and Spring 2024. To get the first one you have to have been getting one of the benefits before 25th February 2023 (or with UC have qualified for it between 26th January and 25th February) . If you weren’t at the time but later get a backdated award back to those dates you can still get te payment. Dates for the 2nd and 3rd payments will be announcedd. There are also non means tested payments to add to Winter Fuel Payments for pensioners and to disability benefits such as PIP and ADP. For more details see: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/cost-of-living-payments-2023-to-2024
• BUT other restrictions remain: The Benefits Cap has also gone up by the same 10.1%, but that is the first increase in 5 years and then back into the freezer it goes. The Local Housing Allowance that limits the help you can get with private tenancies is once again frozen, despite rents rocketing in the current housing crisis. The Two Child Limit – that has no evidence behind it – continues to bite harder racking up child poverty rates and blighting the chances of future generations.
• Are the new benefit rates enough to live on? The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Tressell Trust reckon not. They and have launched a campaign for an Essentials Guarantee, calling on the Government to set up an independent commission (as for the National Minimum Wage) to set basic benefit levels that relate to a basic essentials budget. They estimate that even the new basic rate of £84.80 a week for a single person falls well short of the £120 needed. And the £133.50 for a couple falls short of the necessary £200. And forget it if you are on reduced rates for under 25s… Still worse, some 50% of people on UC don’t even get that full rate, because of sanctions, deductions and repaying Advance Payments . For more details go to https://www.trusselltrust.org/get-involved/campaigns/guarantee-our-essentials
• Will there be a new edition of the Big Book of Benefits soon? We are currently working with Child Poverty Action Group and Mind on their new Mental Health and Benefits Handbook. It is a very different publication from the Big Book and doesn’t replace it. You can access the current text for free at: https://askcpag.org.uk/publications/-243337/mental-health-and-benefits-handbook-1st-edition .
• Ongoing work on the CPAG book and what that means for a new Big Book: That work continues to improve and update the text. ahead of a revised online version and printed book. It won’t be an annual thing, just as the Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health seems to work best as a new edition every other year (with Update Packs). It makes sense then to alternate new editions of each book.
• In the meantime the free Updater Packs will come close to bringing your current book up to date for the coming year 🙂 . If you haven’t got one you can still buy that last edition ready for some work with scissors and paper paste one wet afternoon 🙂 We will also bring all those packs into the current online version later in the year.
• And just one more thing : In this quieter year for the current Big Book, we will finally get on with a companion Big Book of Benefits and Money for Older People 2023-25. After that the two Big Books can join that alternating years dance 🙂 .

The first of a two-part free April 2022 Updater Pack for the Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health 2021-23 is available now on our downloads page here .

This will be quickly followed by Part 2 on the same page, as we join up the work on that (and add some double checking) with our contribution to an updater for the National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers. So:

• Part 1 is about the new benefits rates: It brings all the main pages with benefit rates (eg tables, example sums and calculation sheets) up to date with the April 2022 rates. We are very much hoping that if the suggestion of a further emergency uprating is taken up, that we will be forced to redo this in a couple of months.

• Part 2 will focus on other changes : Not many that aren’t already covered in the last Big Book, but still important as DWP returns to “business as usual” (how you deal with them, re-assessments etc) and restarts switch-overs to newer benefits e.g. the switch from Adult DLA to PIP (or now ADP in Scotland) and the slow start of “managed migration” to Universal Credit. And the latest on extra help with the “cost of living crisis” and growing fuel poverty.

You can download these two Update Packs for FREE!! and print them off. You may want to just keep them to refer to alongside your copy of the last edition of the Big Book, write changes into your copy or paste replacement pages over the top of the old pages.

The last edition of the Big Book was late 😦 , but as a silver lining, captured some important changes after April 2021 :-). So all the tips, practical tools and information about both the current system and changes ahead largely hold good. If you don’t yet have a copy, you can still buy one and use with these free Update Packs. If you already had a copy, these packs give you another year’s shelf life. Every little helps:-)

If you prefer to have all the text up to date on the page of your book, you can find out more and subscribe to the online edition here

(This post was updated on 29th March 2022)

The current edition of the Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health is being extended from its original 2021-22 date to become the Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health 2021-23

A free Update Pack will enable you to extend your current copy beyond April 2022. If you haven’t got a copy of the current edition you still can at one of the links below.

Back in Summer 2021 we wrote: There has been a lot of beavering away and a few hiccups along the way, so we just missed our Midsummer’s day publication date. The delay does mean we have incorporated a number of changes made in the early Summer of 2021, making this edition even more cutting edge than it would have been.

You can order your copy:

• By clicking on the link at: CPAG

• Or by ordering at your favourite local bookshop.
• Or by clicking on the link at: Amazon

The mock-up to the left gives an impression of how it looks but it will actually come with a black spiral binding.

And with new stiffer laminated covers to help keep the pages in order and giver a nicer harder wearing finish. New copies will soon start to ship with an amended cover saying 2021/23 and with the link to our downloads page where you will find the free April 2022 Updater Pack

Alternatively, you can take out an annual subscription to the Online Edition for £24.00 from the Ask CPAG website. This offers the same content and layout as the printed version, except that the text will amended to include all the changes in the April 2022 Updater Pack

You can read more about the current edition and the April 2022 Update Pack – on the Big Book’s own page on this website, which you can get to direct by clicking here

You can also get what lies between its covers by clicking here.

It has put on lockdown weight at a time of high paper prices for printing. So, after holding the price for 5 years, there is a regrettable need for a small price increase to £28.00 for the printed version , but £24.00 for the Online Edition.

The ISBN number that can help your local book shop track it down is: 978-0-9954595-4-0.

Please let us know what you think – both about the book itself and the way we are extending it to April 2023- by using the feedback page near the back of the book or leaving a comment.

The upside of this extension is that the book can be useful right through until April 2023, so it could end up lasting you nearly two years. The downside is some extra faff in needing to refer to the Updater Pack .

We hope you – and the people you support – feel the benefit. Good luck 🙂

Hi all, I hope you had good sunny Bank Holidays .

By the skin of May’s teeth, the Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health 2021/22 is finished and about to embark on its journeys to printers and posting as an e-book

I will confirm arrangements and final launch dates over the coming week and will post shortly about how you can get your copy

MENTAL HEALTH AWAREMESS WEEK

You may have seen a lot of activity across all kind of mental health organisations, media, tv programmes and awareness raising activity for https://www.facebook.com/mentalhealthfoundation.

If you are going to be far later than intended with a Big Book, then it’s as good week as any to get the last bits done, while planning ways to get both online and printed versions out there.

BIG BOOK IS NEARLY THERE – ONLINE & PRINT 🙂

We had genuinely thought April would be doable, with both authors planning chunks of time to get this done. Apologies to all for not quite making it , but unavoidable stuff has got in the way for us both. and we have slipped into May. The final uploadable and print copy should be ready for setting up in new online homes and printing to start early next week. I will post again to confirm the how?, where? and when? , to get your copy , some pre-ordering possibilities pre- ordering and then to announce when the books are for download or available from all good bookshops. Thank you hugely for your kind patience

Please take a look :

• on our Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health page for more details of what you may find in this new edition of the bumper book of benefits joy 🙂

• and on our Downloads page where we will be posting some useful updated sample pages from the new edition to give both a preview of what’s inside and some free practical tools that may be helpful

Spring is in the air and Happy St. David’s Day / Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus

A quick update on “What’s occurring?” for Big Books generally and to help with the hunt for a new edition of the Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health

Changes at Big Books

Over recent years, I have welcomed the opportunity to keep the Big Books light burning, while keeping my feet grounded and a bit of financial security in working part time as an adviser. But that has also constrained how much time I could put into the Big Book of benefits Project.

Last Autumn was a big and difficult choice time. My part time post was going, but an awesome, full time vacancy was offered instead. A big move to the big city would be involved and with it being strictly full time only, it would have involved putting Big Books on a bit of a backburner 😦

After much pondering, exploring and agonising , heart has ruled head, Big Book of benefits it is, and you are stuck with me and wild plans to post more of news, happenings and content on this site and on our facebook page. And one of those is our involvement in a project to offer some free training across Wales…

Dangos: Showing People Ways to help others

We are now heavily involved in delivering a big project offering free online awareness training sessions funded by the Welsh Government . The idea is very “Big Books” in nature to train up frontline staff and volunteers across Wales to raise awareness of benefits, barriers andother help available to the people they come across in their working and volunteering roles.

The idea is to help people be more confident and better informed and more aware listeners, better able to hold conversations with people and encourage them to get to advice and support to access the help they need. To encourage people that it is worth talking to an adviser and to support them in linking up with one. You can find out more at: https://www.dangos.wales

The Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health – April 2021-22

When I last posted, on our Facebook page, we had worked out the eccentric notion of making it a 2021 Annual, running from January 2021 to January 2022, as this seemed the earliest practical way to release a new edition of the Big Book.

So what happened to ? Well, it’s back to a conventional April 2021/22 edition now, for a couple of reasons:

• While the new rates were mostly out, some dragged their heels into February , others have been put off to this month’s Budget. That includes big decisions affecting many of our readers, such as whether or not to continue the vital extra £20 on UC and what next for the other Covid special schemes?

• the rapid pace of kickstarting the Dangos project mentioned above. This diverts a little, but is doing good Big Books type work and gives Big Book of Benefits a bit of a financial base to make things happen

So, your Big Book authors, have now exchanged hard stares over Zoom – scary I can tell you – and committed in blood – or vegetarian equivalent – to very firm plans for getting the new edition out.

• The next step will be a bit of a pre-launch at the next gathering of the National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers – www.nawra.org.uk – alongside a Big Books presentation of recent benefit changes to advisers from across the UK.

• The new and upcoming edition of the Big Book will then incorporate all of those latest changes and sharing of information and ideas into a final updated copy with all the final fiddly stuff of page numbering, proofing and all else that goes into the birthing of a new edition, over the course of March.

• The new edition will then emerge all shiny, sheeny new and so on trend and on time, as the Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health – April 2021/22 .

The new edition will be available as an e-publication from the start. Printing is a bit trickier in these lockdown times, but we hope to offer that printed book option, as soon as we can.

Updating the website

Meantime, here at our website, it’s high time for a much needed spring clean, to brush off the cobwebs (after carefully re-homing all spiders ) . In recent months it has looked as though nothing much has been happening although in practise little feet have been paddling furiously 🙂 . So in coming weeks the plan is to update all of our pages to make this site a little bit more hip, happening and useful .

Stand by for news of cunning plans ahead, our renewed training offers adding online training options to when we hope to renew “in house” training courses . There will be lots of updated and new free resources and information on our downloads page.

Enough already…

Have a happy Spring day and I hope to be posting more news, more regularly on this site and announcements about the patter of not too tiny print soon

Tom

The Big Book of Benefits and Mental Health 2018-20  was published in early November 2018 .

How much is it ?

Where can I get a copy?

Why isn’t in the usual annual edition this time?

Where can I find out more?

For more information about the new Big Book Of Benefits and Mental Health 2018- 20 – plans, what’s inside, excepts etc – please see the book’s very own page on this site  – here 

After a big year for changes last time, we were looking forward to gentle updating and our earliest ever availability for the new 17th edition . But late changes to PIP points, a new PIP2 form and more evidence emerging for re-opened enquiries into the coaolition of chaos and confusion in UC Full Service areas – strong and stable it ain’t 🙂 – all meant we were writing and checking into the wee small hours again.

Publication will now be in May and we will post again to confirm copies are on the shelves. Next year, we will sharpen our quills earlier :-).

So welcome to our new baby as presses roll. 405 pages of fully updated friendly information, practical tools and resources, example forms and supporting letters right through to appeal submissions and usedul case law. The Price is held at last years £25 +p&p

You can find out more about this year’s edition by:

• clicking on the back cover below
• having a look at the cotents and excerpts here
• or by going to our Big Book of Mental Health page here

You can order a copy from our main distributors – Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) -either by:

• ordering online: pop a copy into your online shopping basket, at the CPAG webshop, here
• by telephone: 020 7812 5227
• by post: download and print off the order form here
• by e-mail: bookorders@cpag.org.uk

Thanks again everyone for your kind feedback, patience and support 🙂 The book may not make a lot of money for the work that goes in, but we hope that it helps tells it how it is and offers practical tools to help you make a real difference. May you and others feel the benefit 🙂

Read the book? Now, see it Live 🙂 : If you like the book – or are thinking of ordering several copies – why not check out our linked linked Big Book training. See our Training page – here – for more details.