Social Security information - index

What is Social Security?

The term "social security" is being used in quite a wide sense here, since this is for the UK. In the USA, the term "social security" is more focused on such things as pension provision, and the word "welfare" tends to be used for support for poor people. In the UK, "social security" tends to cover all these areas. (But in the UK, the term "welfare reform" includes pension reform, so there isn't a clear distinction!)

So, social security here tends to mean being paid money by the state (or sometimes other organisations) because you have qualifying conditions (such as unemployment, disability and other sickness, old age, maternity, low pay, etc). The variety of types of social security and the organisations administering them are shown below.

Links to Social Security sources on the Internet

This is a maintained set of Internet sources within the scope of the uk.gov.social-security newsgroup. It is organised mainly by the "key discussion topics" for the newsgroup, defined by its charter.
Links to resources about claiming benefits & tax credits	"Helping people make claims for benefit & tax credits" "Giving advice on which other benefits & tax credits people can claim" "Giving support to claimants currently receiving benefits & tax credits"
Links concerned with gaining & improving employment	"Information on procedures and schemes designed to help claimants gain/improve employment"
Links concerned with Social Security law	"How present and future social security laws effect claimants"
Links concerned with government plans for Social Security	"Government plans to reform the welfare state"
Links to Social Security administration & philosophy	"Administration and Philosophy of the Benefits System"
Links concerning overseas Social Security	"Discussion of overseas benefits systems will only be welcome where it occurs for purposes of comparison, or in relation to claimants moving between the UK and the countries concerned"
This is a maintained set of Internet sources related to, but not strictly within, the scope of the uk.gov.social-security newsgroup.
Summary of organisations administering Social Security
Links to general Social Security resources
Parliament & Social Security
Links to regional resources about Social Security	Regional (but often providing more general information)
Links to academic sources about Social Security

Newsgroups

uk.gov.social-security

This is the charter for this newsgroup.

This is the newsgroup concerned here.

"Anyone interested will be welcome to participate in discussions about various benefits, which are paid by different government bodies, which form part of the UK's social security system".

uk.people.disability

This is the charter for this newsgroup.

Another newsgroup, focused on the people issues (eg. mutual support) rather than the handling of social security.

"A UK wide general disability group would complement the main groups by allowing discussion of topics of local interest by disabled people and their friends and carers. In particular, such matters as medical insurance, health care, events, social services requirements, benefits policy, and other localised topics would be better discussed by UK members in a local newsgroup with common interests even if different disabilities are involved".

uk.legal

This does not have a charter.

This is useful newsgroup accessed by many people with legal knowledge. Those people tend not to know so much about Social Security law (although some clearly do), but are likely to be able to answer questions about data protection, human rights, etc.

Page last updated: 5 July, 2004