Many people on Universal Credit or a low income could be eligible for a £1,200 bonus

Millions of people in the UK are currently claiming money from the DWP in the form of Universal Credit, Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit.

The payments are essential in helping people survive, and have become even more crucial after the pandemic.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) estimates that around 500,000 households may now be eligible for Universal Credit when they didn’t before, as a result of changes introduced to the taper rate and work allowance rules at the end of November in 2021.

READ MORE: Anyone on State Pension urged to claim 'as much free government money as possible' before April 5

However, many people claiming benefits are not aware of a scheme - Help to Save - specifically designed to help them by boosting their savings by 50 per cent, which could come in handy when the economic tide turns or their circumstances change - but it's not available to everyone.

The savings scheme has been pushed so many times by money-saving expert, Martin Lewis and the MoneySavingExpert.com team, that new research into the scheme, published by the DWP and HMRC, has attributed a large part of its success to them.

The research included an online survey completed by 2,743 Help to Save customers between December 2020 and January 2021, as well as 33 follow-on qualitative depth interviews throughout March 2021.

It said: "The research found that Help to Save customers are predominantly working women with children at home - in line with the general profile of the Tax Credit population. A third are single parents. MoneySavingExpert was found to be a key source of awareness of the scheme."

The report added : "Customer views on Help to Save are overwhelmingly positive, with a significant majority recommending the