Renfrewshire parents urged to check benefit eligibility as thousands miss out

dailyrecord.co.uk:

New parents in Renfrewshire are being encouraged to check their eligibility for free money to help with food, after thousands of pounds worth goes unclaimed.Social Security Scotland (SSS) says families are missing out on the benefits of the Best Start Food programme, which helps with the cost of buying healthy food and milk when they are pregnant or have a child under the age of three.The payment, which replaced the UK Healthy Start Voucher in 2019, is delivered via a prepaid card and is topped up with up to £36 for each eligible child every four weeks.But SSS worries the message isn’t getting through to people, saying that since launching in 2019, more than 7,000 of the issued cards have never been activated and over 3,000 have been activated but never used.Renfrewshire Live, the new free app dedicated to bringing you around the clock breaking news, is now available to download.Powered by the Paisley Daily Express, Renfrewshire Live is your go-to source for news, features and sport with live coverage provided direct to the app, seven days a week.The dedicated team of experienced journalists, responsible for the publication of the award-winning Express, will focus on breaking news, day and night, across Renfrewshire’s towns and villages.There is also a dedicated St Mirren section that will follow every kick of the ball with the Buddies. Available on both Android and Apple.

D ownload here: smarturl.it/RenfrewLiveSocial To tackle the problem, SSS has written to parents, urging them to look for their cards and is encouraging them to check their balances online, at a cash machine or by calling the card issuer allpay.Allpay is also writing to a larger group of card holders informing them of their unspent balances.And