PART IGENERAL

Citation, commencement and interpretation

1.—(1) These Regulations may be cited as the Social Security (Loss of Benefit) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2002 and shall come into operation on 1st April 2002.

(2) In these Regulations—

“the Act” means the Social Security Fraud Act (Northern Ireland) 2001;

“the Employment and Training Act” means the Employment and Training Act (Northern Ireland) 1950(1);

“the Benefits Act” means the Social Security Contributions and Benefits (Northern Ireland) Act 1992(2);

“the Children Order” means the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995(3);

“the Jobseekers Order” means the Jobseekers (Northern Ireland) Order 1995(4);

“an authority” has the same meaning as in Article 2 of the Children Order;

“claimant” in a regulation means the person claiming the sanctionable benefit referred to in that regulation;

“disqualification period” means the period in respect of which the restrictions on payment of a relevant benefit apply in respect of an offender in accordance with section 6(6) of the Act and shall be interpreted in accordance with regulation 2;

“the Housing Benefit Regulations” means the Housing Benefit (General) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1987(5);

“the Income Support Regulations” means the Income Support (General) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1987(6);

“the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations” means the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996(7); and

“offender” means the person who is subject to the restriction in the payment of his benefit in accordance with section 6 of the Act.

(3) Expressions used in these Regulations which are defined either for the purposes of the Jobseekers Order or the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations shall have the same meaning as for the purposes of that Order or, as the case may be, those Regulations.

(5)

S.R. 1987 No. 461; relevant amending rules are S.R. 1998 No. 73 and S.R. 2001 No. 41