Benefits and Pensions

Benefits

All deafened people are entitled to all the various Social Services and State benefits on the same basis as everyone else. In addition, if you are deafened and meet certain other conditions, you may be entitled to other benefits and credits as a result of your deafness alone.

Some of these relate to education and employment and are explained in the relevant sections of this booklet. However, irrespective of whether you are in employment or education, you may well be able to claim Disability Living Allowance (DLA), [or Attendance Allowance (AA) if you are over 65], Incapacity Benefit or Council Tax Benefit. Although there are inconsistencies in applying the DLA/AA rules, many deafened people have made successful claims, often after appeal.

Since all of these payments are dependent your personal circumstances, you will need contact the benefit provider to see if you qualify but before doing that you may find that contacting the Department of Work and Pensions Benefit Enquiry Line (See Factsheet 1, Section f, for details) is a helpful first step. The Disability Alliance: www.disabilityalliance.org, an independent body can offer advice on Benefit issues as can the Citizens Advice Bureau : www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/life/benefits.htm

As a general guide, the table below provides a signpost to possible entitlement.
See also Factsheet 4

	Personal Conditions	Benefit/Credit
1	Deafened and not working (or working less than 16 hours/week)	Jobseeker's Allowance, Employment & Support Allowance
2	Deafened with low earnings	Inland Revenue Working Tax Credit
3	Deafened, on a low income and paying Council Tax	Council Tax Benefit, Housing Benefit
4	Deafened and responsible for at least one child or qualifying young person	Child Tax Credit
5	Deafened as a result of exposure to noise or an accident at work	Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit
6	Deafened due to serving in the Armed Forces	War Disablement Pension
7	Deafened and needing help to live independently	Community Care Grant
8	Aged 60 and over with low/modest income	Pension Credit (Guarantee Credit part)
9	Aged 65 and over with low/modest income	Pension Credit (Savings Credit Part)

A further benefit available to deafened people is that Adult Social Services may provide certain assistance aids to daily living such as the alerting systems and text-phones mentioned in this booklet. Again there is inconsistency in what might be provided even though there is a requirement for Adult Social Services to provide appropriate support. It is certainly worth seeing what is available.

Pensions

Should you decide that you are unable, or do not wish, to continue working or decide to seek alternative employment, then it is important you first consider what benefits could be available to you from any occupational pension scheme of which you have been a member. These benefits will depend on the type of scheme to which you belonged and for some schemes there may be a provision for benefits to be taken early in the event of ill-health. However such early benefits would usually be significantly less than would be available at your normal retirement date.

Details of your scheme benefits should be available on request from your employer or from the Trustees of your scheme. Your trade union representative may also be able to arrange for the details to be obtained. If you have a private insured pension, then you should contact your Insurance Broker. You should also take advice from an Independent Financial Adviser should you want to consider investing any cash sum to secure a pension. See Yellow Pages under Financial Advisers and Investment Consultants.

See also Factsheet 4.

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