Terms & Conditions

[MissMoody]

Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 12:27 pm Post subject: Persons From Abroad

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I have a customer who is claiming Income Support as she has a child, her husband lives with her but is only on a 2 year Visa(only married two years ago) and has no recourse to public funds. The customer gets I.S as a single person as the DWP disregard him for benefit purposes.
For HB/CTB purposes we must take the partners full income and capital into account, even if no recourse to public funds.
My question is, how do i enter this onto I-World in the finance screen as the income support code will overide his income and automaticly award full benefit? Do i enter her Income Support rate under the ‘other income’ code so as not to award maximum benefit?
What is the point of me using the partners income and capital or even requesting evidence if her passported element will award the full HB/CTB amount? Can anybody help!

[andyrichards]

They are passported. You do not need any info or evidence of his income and capital. Are you sure that is income and capital is being disregarded by DWP? That is not my understanding of how these cases work.

[MissMoody]

i have checked the DWP guidance and as they can not include anybody with no recourse to public funds in teh applicable ammount they therefore cannot use thier income in an assessment. (eg JSAib) They can use jointly owned capital but not the partners income as not entitled to public funds!

[andyrichards]

Not what it says in CPAG Welfare Benefits and Tax Credits Guide (not saying it’s right!). If you have a copy check out page 1408. Only your customer is getting IS; her partner is not included in the applicable amount but his income and capital does count in the assessment. That does not mean that he is receiving public funds. As far as HB/CTB is concerned your customer is receiving max benefit based on her entitlement to IS. No extra benefit accrues from the presence of the partner so, again, he cannot be said to be receiving public funds.

If there was no passporting benefit you would assess HB/CTB using the couple applicable amount (no provision to do otherwise in our regs), but this would arguably result in the partner having recourse, which could cause them problems.

[Anonymous]

There seems to be a very high error rate by DWP in dealing with these cases. They most certainly can and should use the partner’s income and capital – the only special thing about a partner with no recourse to public funds in IS and JSA is that the applicable amount is limited to the single person’s amount. Everything else about the claim is normal.

More fundamentally, this claimant should not be getting IS as a lone parent because, er, she isn’t a lone parent. She should be signing on for JSA. Even then, if the partner works more than 24 hours a week she won’t be entitled to JSA either, nor will she be of course if his income is higher than about £60 a week.

Has your claimant’s partner got income? It sounds like he has from what you say. I would hold off awarding HB and CTB and query this with DWP – if a senior person looks at it they might well decide that the IS award is a mistake.

But if DWP is aware of the issue and still insists that the IS award is correct, well then you are stuck with it and all the income and capital of your claimant and partner must be disregarded for HB and CTB.

[andyrichards]

Well spotted Peter. I had missed the lone parent issue. I guess she’s a “lone parent” by extension of the logic that her partner has no recourse and therefore does not exist!

[MissMoody]

I agree, I dont actually think she should be deemed a lone parent either. I will endevour to get a response from the DWP about the assessment of her I.S claim. Thank you for your help!

[Kevin D]

This just idled through my mind….so I thought I’d lob it into the mix late on a Friday afternoon…..

Just wondered if, in such cases, whether an LA could be regarded as being a “person affected” in terms of an IS decision. So, in cases where the DWP have got their decision wrong, the LA could appeal where it impacts on HB/CTB….. This line of thought is on the (very dangerous) assumption that the Act & Regs for “person affected” for IS are the same as HB/CTB.

Regards

[seanosul]

As you also asked on the systems boaard about how to enter this I will also answer here.

A member of a household is a member of a household. Full stop. For IS purposes she would have a single person applicable amount, however his income is included. He is a member of the household. The DWP are getting her to not declare her partner ???

For HB we have to include him for both the income and applicable amount. System wise there is nothing you can do as IS over rides income. On this Northgate is correct.

He will need to be included in her assessment.

[Author]

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