These Regulations amend the Council Tax Reduction (Scotland) Regulations 2012 (“the Working Age Regulations”) and the Council Tax Reduction (State Pension Credit) (Scotland) Regulations 2012 (“the Pension Age Regulations”) by extending the classes of persons who do not need to meet residence criteria in the United Kingdom in order to qualify for a council tax reduction.

Regulation 2 inserts new categories into the list of persons who are not to be treated as not being in Great Britain for the purpose of the residence criteria set out in regulation 16 of the Working Age Regulations. The new categories are persons to whom leave is granted under the immigration rules by virtue of the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy or the previous scheme for locally-employed staff in Afghanistan (otherwise known as the ex-gratia scheme), persons to whom leave is granted under the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme, and persons not coming within those schemes, but who arrived in Great Britain from Afghanistan in connection with the fall of the Afghan government that took place on 15 August 2021.

Regulation 3 makes similar amendments to regulation 16 of the Pension Age Regulations.