The Social Security (Child Maintenance Premium and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2001

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations.)

These Regulations amend the Income Support (General) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1987, the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996 and the Housing Benefit (General) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1987.

These Regulations come into operation at different times for different cases according to the dates on which section 22 of the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Act (Northern Ireland) 2000 which is relevant to these Regulations, is commenced for different types of cases.

Regulation 2(1)(b) and (2)(b) provides that for the purpose of ascertaining entitlement to income support and jobseeker’s allowance, up to £10 of a payment of child maintenance shall be disregarded. That disregarded amount is known as the child maintenance premium. Child maintenance is defined for these purposes as a payment prescribed for the purposes of section 72A of the Social Security Administration (Northern Ireland) Act 1992 (“the 1992 Act”) and payments by the Department for Social Development (“the Department”) in lieu of such maintenance.

Regulation 2(1)(a) and (2)(a) provides that for the purpose of calculating the weekly amount of child support maintenance, payments by the Department in lieu of periodical payments of child support maintenance shall be treated as payments of child support maintenance.

Regulation 3 provides that payments by the Department in lieu of child maintenance shall, for the purpose of ascertaining entitlement to housing benefit, be treated as if they were payments of maintenance paid by a former partner of the claimant or his partner or by a parent of a child or young person.

Regulation 4 revokes, with transitional provisions, regulations 2 to 13 of the Social Security (Child Maintenance Bonus) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996, the Child Maintenance Bonus (Great Britain Reciprocal Arrangements) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997, regulation 8 of the Social Security (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997 and regulation 2 of the Social Security (Miscellaneous Amendments No. 2) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1998.

In so far as these Regulations are required, for the purposes of regulation 3, to be referred to the Social Security Advisory Committee under section 149(2) of the 1992 Act, 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 Social Security in relation to Great Britain and accordingly, by virtue of section 149(3) of, and paragraph 10 of Schedule 5 to, the 1992 Act, are not subject to the requirement of section 149(2) of that Act for prior reference to the Social Security Advisory Committee.

These Regulations do not impose a charge on business.