Welfare Reform Act (Northern Ireland) 2007

Social fund

Matters to which regard must be had in awarding budgeting loans

50.  In section 136(1A) of the Contributions and Benefits Act (principles for determining awards of budgeting loans)—

(a) in paragraph (b) (duty to have regard to criteria specified in paragraphs (b) to (e) of subsection (1)), for “(b) to (e)” substitute “(b), (d) and (e)”, and

(b) the words following paragraph (b) (which enable the Department to give directions about cases in which the applicant’s personal circumstances would preclude the award of a budgeting loan) cease to have effect.

Allocations from Social Fund

51.—(1) Section 147 of the Administration Act (allocations from social fund) is amended as follows.

(2) In subsection (1) (duty of Department to allocate amounts for payments from the social fund such as are mentioned in section 134(1)(b) of the Contributions and Benefits Act), after “Act” insert “(in this section referred to as “section 134(1)(b) payments”)”.

(3) In subsection (3) (types of allocation that may be made)—

(a) for paragraph (a) substitute—

“(a) may be for all section 134(1)(b) payments or for any description of such payments;”;

(b) in paragraph (b) (power to allocate different amounts for different purposes), for “different purposes” substitute “payments of different descriptions”; and

(c) in paragraph (d) (additional allocations), omit the words from “to the same officer” to the end.

(4) After subsection (3) insert—

“(3A) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (3)(a) above, descriptions of section 134(1)(b) payments may, in particular, be framed by reference to—

(a) the purposes for which payments are made;

(b) the persons by whom payments are made (including where such persons are located);

(c) the persons to whom payments are made (including where such persons are located).”.