Terms & Conditions

[davo]

Morning all,
one of my colleagues has asked me to post this on the site as he is not sure how to treat the income. As usual any thoughts suggestions would be helpful.
I’ve got a Student claim where the claimant receives a ‘Training bursary’ of £6000.00 payable in two installments of £3000.00 (Paid at start of course in April 2006) and £3000.00 will be paid on completion of the course.
However, the course is a Flexi PGCE and the end date is therefore unknown! The University states that it is due to end in July 2007, but the claimant states that it will either be July 07 or April 2008!?
The HB guides suggest that ‘Training Bursarys’ should be taken into account over the period payable but state that if in exceptional circumstances they are paid in a lump sum that they should be trated as capital? Is two payments of £3000.00 instalments or Lump Sum? And if instalments, over what period?
I have written to the claimant to ask if she is eligible to apply for Student loan.. She states that she has applied but has not yet heard!

Any help in understanding how to calculate this income would be appreciated. (I’m leaning towards Capital myself!!)

[Kevin D]

Ok, I’ll have a shot….

A bursary is a grant – [b:8963443a15]HBR 53(1)[/b:8963443a15]. In HBR 53(1), there are separate definitions for “grant” and “grant income”.

Is it income or capital? [b:8963443a15]HBR 68[/b:8963443a15] provides for what must be treated as capital. It doesn’t include grants, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a grant cannot be capital.

To my mind, the crux is whether the grant can be attributed to a period (general use of the word “period”). Based on the info provided by you, I’d suggest it can be attributed. Although the clmt has stated the course end date is unknown, the University have made it clear that the expected end date is July 2007. On the balance of probability, that strikes me as being the best evidence available at this time. On that basis, I’d treat the bursary as income for the period April 2006 to July 2007.

If it subsequently becomes clear that the end date will change, that would constitute a change of circs and require either a supersession or revision as appropriate.

Regards

[Author]

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