A2B: Access to Benefits

A2B is a not-for-profit organisation funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies and a grant from the Department of Finance and Personnel. It works to help older people across Northern Ireland maximise their take-up of benefit entitlements. It started operations in May 2007 and has 8 staff based in its North Belfast offices.

People can already use A2B’s Benefit Calculator at www.a2b.org.uk. It’s an online questionnaire A2B developed to help older people work out what benefit entitlements they’re due.

With advice and age sector organisations, A2B is developing an Older Person Advisers’ Course to provide advisers with the specialist skills and knowledge needed to work with older people.

A2B is jointly developing ways of linking existing information systems used by different organisations which help older people apply for benefits, and to automate complex application forms whenever possible. We call this Case Recording Integration and Application Form Automation.

Our Datamine of anonymised information on benefit uptake across Northern Ireland will help improve the effectiveness of future benefit uptake campaigns.

A2B is developing its Partnership Network of organisations which can help bring the message about benefit uptake to older people. It does this by supporting their outreach and community development work.