Customer Management System

A new way to claim Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit

From September 2005, there will be a change in the way working age customers living in Taunton claim benefit.

From September, working age people will need to make their new or repeat claim for Jobseekers Allowance (JSA), Income Support (IS) or Incapacity Benefit (IB) by calling JobCentre Plus and giving their details over the telephone.  They will also make their claim for Housing Benefit (HB) and/or Council Tax Benefit (CTB) at the same time.  This means they will no longer have to fill in a paper application form to claim HB and CTB.

People wanting to claim benefit should initially contact JobCentre Plus by telephone.  JobCentre Plus staff will take some basic claim information from them.  This telephone call will be charged at a local rate. They will then call the customer back at an agreed time to gather more information needed for their benefit claims.  During this call, they will also collect information needed by us to assess their HB/CTB claim.

JobCentre Plus will then print out the information given over the telephone and send it to the customer for them to check and sign.  The customer will return this information, with any documents needed to support their benefit claim, to the Taunton JobCentre Plus office, at an agreed time.

Once the customer has provided all the necessary evidence and information to support their claim, JobCentre Plus will pass the HB/CTB claim details to us.

The main advantage of this new way of claiming is customers will only need to provide information once for several benefit claims.

The Council's Benefits Service will still be responsible for working out claims for HB and CTB. We may still need to ask some customers to provide more evidence and information, for example proof of rent, before we can assess the claim.

Once a customer is getting HB and/or CTB, they will still need to report any changes in their circumstances direct to us.