These Regulations amend the Council Tax Reduction (Scotland) Regulations 2012 and the Council Tax Reduction (State Pension Credit) (Scotland) Regulations 2012 (together, “the 2012 Regulations”).

Regulations 3 and 6 ensure that early years assistance and funeral expense assistance provided under the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 are not to be taken into account in the calculation of income for council tax reduction purposes.

Regulations 4 and 7 ensure that payments of arrears of benefits made to rectify an error on a point of law are not to be taken into account in the calculation of capital for council tax reduction purposes. Such errors are not an “official error” as provided for in the 2012 Regulations. Regulations 4 and 7 also amend the 2012 Regulations to disregard in that calculation such payments where they are made as a result of an error by the Scottish Ministers, in administering social security assistance, except where someone other than the Scottish Ministers or the Department for Work and Pensions has materially contributed to the error.