The Rent Officers (Housing Benefit Functions) Order 1997

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Order)

This Order revokes and re-enacts with modifications the Rent Officers (Additional Functions) Order 1995 and revokes the Orders which amended it. It confers functions on rent officers in connection with housing benefit and rent allowance subsidy and requires rent officers to make determinations and redeterminations relating to a tenancy or licence of a dwelling.

The main modifications relate to single room rent determinations under paragraph 5 of Part I of Schedule 1, which are required where the housing benefit claimant is a young individual. By an amendment (which is not yet in force) made by S.I. 1997/1000 to the 1995 Order, such determinations would also have been required for single claimants as defined in the 1997 Order. This Order reverses the prospective amendment so that determinations will continue to be required only for young individuals. This Order also changes a criterion in paragraph 5(2)(b)(iv) of Part I of Schedule 1 which is relevant for determining single room rents and provides, in article 6(2), that single room rent determinations are no longer required for the accommodation described specified in that provision (hostels, registered homes etc.).

The other modifications include a requirement for rent officers to make additional assumptions, when making a determination or redetermination, and give additional information to local authorities in the cases specified in article 7(3) and (4) (general counselling or other support services: supported accommodation).

The Order also amends, in article 8, the 1995 Order by adding a requirement relating to supported accommodation similar to that in article 7(3) and (4).

Articles 1, 8 and 10(1) come into force on the 18th August 1997 and the remainder comes into force on the 3rd September 1997. Article 10(1) stops the amendment to the 1995 Order applying to applications for determinations made before article 8 comes into force and article 10(2) stops other provisions affecting applications for determinations made before those provisions come into force.