The Social Security (Miscellaneous Amendments No. 4) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2009

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend—

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

• the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1987 (“the Claims and Payments Regulations”);

• the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996 (“the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations”);

• the State Pension Credit Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003 (“the State Pension Credit Regulations”);

• the Housing Benefit Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 (“the Housing Benefit Regulations”);

• the Housing Benefit Regulations (Persons who have attained the qualifying age for state pension credit) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 (“the Housing Benefit State Pension Credit Regulations”); and

• the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2008 (“the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations”).

Regulation 2 amends the Income Support Regulations to:

• remove an unnecessary category from the definition of “a chronically sick or mentally disabled” person for the purposes of determining the circumstances in which persons in relevant education may be entitled to income support, as the category is already covered by provisions elsewhere within the definition;

• clarify the policy intention in relation to provisions concerning persons under 21 with no parent, or living away from their parents, undertaking full-time, non-advanced education; and

• add single claimants and lone parents with whom a child is placed for adoption by an adoption agency to the list of prescribed categories of persons for the purposes of entitlement to income support.

Regulations 2, 4, 6 and 8 amend the Income Support Regulations, the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations, the Housing Benefit Regulations and the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations to reinstate relevant references to the Children Acts 1975 and 1989 which were removed by previous legislation.

Regulations 2, 4 and 8 amend the Income Support Regulations, the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations, and the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations to:

• provide for a full disregard for child maintenance payments when calculating income for benefits purposes, and align the treatment of capital derived from child maintenance payments with the usual capital rules for income related benefits;

• include cross references to provisions explaining the periods over which working tax credit income is taken into account, and

• clarify that retainers in the form of statutory guarantee payments and payments where someone is suspended on medical or maternity grounds should continue to be taken into account as earnings.

Regulations 2 and 4 amend the Income Support Regulations and the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations to remove an obsolete reference to section 7 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 in the definition of “access funds”.

Regulations 2, 4 to 8 amend the Income Support Regulations, the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations, the State Pension Credit Regulations, the Housing Benefit Regulations, the Housing Benefit State Pension Credit Regulations and the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations to:

• introduce a disregard for any expenses received, including any notional expenses arising out of a claimant’s involvement with a service user group, and

• provide that the appropriate disregard is applied to a payment under the Ministry of Defence’s Early Departure Payments Scheme when considering income for benefit purposes.

Regulations 2 and 8 amend the Income Support Regulations and the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations to provide for a cross reference within the housing costs provisions to the definition of “period of study” contained within those respective regulations, to align the treatment of income support and employment and support allowance claimants with jobseeker’s allowance claimants.

Regulation 3 amends the Claims and Payments Regulations so that in each case the time limit for correcting a defective claim for benefit starts from the date the claimant is first advised of the defect, rather than the date the claimant was last advised of the defect. The effect is that the time limit (which is one month, or such longer period as the Department considers reasonable) will not be automatically extended by the issue of subsequent reminders.

Regulation 4 amends the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations to align the treatment of:

• young persons discharged from detention and who are estranged from their parents, with other provisions in the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations, and

• jobseeker’s allowance claimants, with the treatment of income support and employment and support allowance claimants in respect of payments made by third parties, where the claimant or their partner lives in a care home, an Abbeyfield Home or an independent hospital, by disregarding payments made in respect of that person’s care by a health authority.

Regulations 6 amends the Housing Benefit Regulations to align them with other income- related benefits in respect of the disregard for income from child maintenance payments, by widening the category of third parties whose child maintenance payments will be disregarded as income for benefit calculation purposes.

Regulation 7 amends the Housing Benefit State Pension Credit Regulations to correct references in the definition of “concessionary payments”.

Regulation 8 amends the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations to:

• clarify the provision in relation to when it will be considered reasonable not to have attended a work-focused interview, and

• remove the requirement for an employment and support allowance claimant to seek the Department’s permission before travelling abroad for medical treatment for a short period without this affecting their employment and support allowance eligibility, and

• clarify a provision in Part 1 (prescribed amounts) of Schedule 4 (amounts).

Regulation 9 makes consequential revocations.

In so far as these Regulations are required, for the purposes of Regulations 6 and 7, to be referred to the Social Security Advisory Committee under section 149(2) of the Social Security Administration (Northern Ireland) Act 1992, after agreement by the Social Security Advisory Committee, they have not been so referred by virtue of section 150(1)(b) of that Act. Otherwise they make in relation to Northern Ireland only provision corresponding to provision contained in Regulations made by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in relation to Great Britain and accordingly, by virtue of section 149(3) of, and paragraph 10 of Schedule 5 to, that Act, are not subject to the requirement of section 149(2) for prior reference to the Social Security Advisory Committee.