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Welfare Rights/Benefit Advice

We Are Here to Help

ACHA's Welfare Rights Officers are here to help tenants with all aspects of Income Maximisation, including benefit advice. For more info, click here.

Cost of Living Crisis

We can help with all of the following:

Referrals for Energy advice
Applications to the Flexible Fuel & Food Fund

Universal Credit - Updating your Housing Costs

If you are claiming Universal Credit you will receive a notification on your Universal Credit journal asking you to 'Confirm your housing costs'

Universal Credit will add a 'Confirm your housing costs' to-do to tenants' online accounts:

Universal Credit will ask tenants to complete the to-do by the end of their current assessment period, to ensure they get the correct housing payment.

ACHA sent you a letter on the 28.02.2024 confirming your new rent and service charges, please have this to hand before you log into your universal credit journal.

You will be asked:

Has your rent changed? - Answer Yes
Have your service charges changed? - Answer Yes/No as applicable
When did your housing costs change? - Answer 01.04.2024
How much will you be charged for your new rent? (excluding service charges?) - Please look at your rent increase letter
How frequent is your new rent? - Answer Weekly
Do you have any rent free weeks? - Answer 2 weeks
How much will you be charged for your new service charges (where applicable?) - Please look at your rent increase letter
How frequent is your new service charge? - Answer Weekly

You MUST do this online on or as soon as possible after the 1st April 2024. If you are a telephone claimant, you must phone 0800 328 5644 to update your rent details. Failure to update your housing costs may mean you will not receive enough money to cover your rent charge and incur rent arrears.

If you need any help or assistance or are unsure what your new rent charge is, please contact us on 0800 028 2755 or e-mail welfarerights@acha.co.uk

Tenant Guide to Maximising Income

Acha’s Welfare Rights Officers are here to help all ACHA tenants with all aspects of benefit advice including mandatory reconsiderations and appeals including representation at Tribunal. The benefits system can often be challenging and overwhelming to navigate, further complicated by the fact that benefits, grants and rebates can come from a variety of agencies and so it is often difficult to know where to go for the right support. Some benefits e.g. Universal Credit are administered by the UK Government and some benefits are now being devolved to the Scottish Government for example Child Disability Payment. Some benefits such as the Scottish Child Payment are only available in Scotland which can be overwhelming for claimants.

Additionally, local authorities have also been given responsibility for administering support and grant assistance. Using a holistic approach to bring all of this information to one access point, Welfare Rights Officers are committed to ensuring that tenants access the right information and level of support they require on an individual basis.

Our Welfare Rights Service provides a Welfare Rights Officer for each area in Argyll where you can contact your Welfare Rights Officer to arrange an appointment either by telephone or in person, face to face visits can be organised for the office or home whichever suits best. Please click on the following area leaflets for more information on the Welfare Rights Officer for your area.

For further information on benefits for working age and pensioners and please do not hesitate to contact Acha’s Welfare Rights Service if you wish to check eligibility.

You can also contact our Welfare Rights Service on 0800 028 2755 or email welfarerights@acha.co.uk.

Please click on this link for useful information on some of the benefits available to maximise income.