Changes to benefits - how will they affect you?

The government has been making changes to welfare benefits since 2010. These changes are often referred to as welfare reform.

2013 will see the introduction of many of the larger welfare reform schemes. Further information is available below. Some of these will take several years to be fully introduced.

Welfare reform is an ongoing process, therefore the pages in this section will be reviewed regularly. Each page will tell you when it was last updated.

Bury Council is working to support local residents by providing advice and guidance to show if the changes will affect them. To help with the impact of the changes, a Help With Rent Team has been set up operating across the Greater Manchester region to work with both landlords and tenants. Their website contains a welfare reform calculator which can be used to be work out if you will be affected by the changes. 

In the downloads section of this page there is a factsheet giving a summary of the recent welfare changes.

Universal Credit

This is one of the most important parts of the welfare reform process. Universal credit will replace a number of working age benefits with one larger and simpler scheme.

Find out more about universal credit

Personal independence payments

Disability living allowance will start to be replaced by personal independence payments from April 2013, to help people with health conditions and disabilities.

Find out more about personal independence payments

Under occupancy in social housing

Housing benefit was reduced for some tenants in April 2013, who rent their homes from social landlords if their properties are too large for the size of their household.

Find out more about under occupancy in social housing.

Benefit cap

A limit on the total amount of benefits a household can receive will be introduced later in 2013.

Find out more about the benefit cap.

Council Tax Support scheme

In April 2013 council tax benefit was abolished. It was replaced by a local council tax support scheme to help people on low incomes pay their council tax.

Find out more about the council tax support scheme in Bury.

Bury Support Fund

Community care grants and crisis loans were abolished from the end of March 2013. Bury Council has introduced the Bury Support Fund to help people who find themselves in exceptional financial difficulties.

Find out more about the Bury Support Fund.

Pensions reform

Most welfare reforms affect working age people. Looking further into the future the government is proposing reforms for pensioners. In some cases these reforms have yet to be agreed by Parliament.

Find out more about pensions reform.

This page was last updated on 24 April 2013 

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