The Minister for Social Care is urging child benefit recipients who have not yet returned their re-claim forms to do so as soon as possible if they want to get child benefit after 6 April 2014.
Commenting on the issue, the Minister for Social Care, Howard Quayle MHK, said:
'We have only received around 6,500 of the 9,700 re-claim forms issued to customers, so there remains around 3,200 outstanding. I urge those customers who have not yet completed and returned their re-claim forms to do so without further delay, if they want to receive child benefit after 6 April. The later we receive a completed re-claim form, the less likely it will be that we can determine if that customer should continue to get child benefit from 7 April. Those who leave it to the last minute will almost certainly face a delay in future payments. We will be writing to all customers who have not yet re-claimed their child benefit to urge them to do so now.'
The Minister added:
'It is especially important that customers getting income support, income-based jobseeker’s allowance or employed person’s allowance send their claim forms in urgently, because those benefits can be affected by whether they get child benefit or not.'
Customers who have not had a child benefit re-claim form, perhaps because they have changed address and not yet informed the Department, should get in touch with the Child Benefit Unit urgently by e-mail at childbenefit.dsc@gov.im or by telephoning +44 1624 685107.
