Reply To: Income Bands figures – how to work them out?
There are certainly a a few schemes that specify a reasoned basis ( e.g. based on NMW / LLW ) and probably others that don’t say but were clearly based at one point at something like an applicable amount (*)
Cumulative uprating and rounding means current schemes don’t necessarily match the original rationale.
In most cases, however, it seems the bands are just invented by officers (or consultants) dreaming up numbers that “look OK” (or, equally likely, just copying off neighbours).
It’s probably worth re-stating: an income-band/grid scheme is not compulsory – though there’s no shortage of consultants who are eager to exchange your £s for one.
LAs who have gone down this road will doubtless tell you what a huge success it’s been but a large majority of LAs do not operate an income-band/grid scheme.
Hidden behind many of these schemes are large arbitrary downsides for certain groups of claimants that ostensibly didn’t get proper public consultation and/or member disclosure.
( * Most band schemes ditch applicable amounts – apparently they’re “old-fashioned” and “complicated” but around 10-15% of band schemes – generally the better ones – explicitly retain an applicable amount and a few others do so cryptically to various extents.)
