The Disability Working Allowance and Income Support (General) Amendment Regulations 1995

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the Disability Working Allowance (General) Regulations 1991 (S.I. 1991/2887) and the Income Support (General) Regulations 1987 (S.I.1987/1967) and are in part consequential on the coming into force of the Social Security (Incapacity for Work) Act 1994, which replaces sickness and invalidity benefits with incapacity benefit, and provides for a new test of incapacity for work.

The Disability Working Allowance (General) Regulations are amended to—

further define training for work and to list days which are to be disregarded in establishing whether a person was engaged in a period of training for work (regulation 2);

provide an additional allowance in respect of a disabled child in the maximum disability working allowance (regulations 3 and 4); and

make transitional arrangements consequential on the abolition of invalidity pension and the introduction of incapacity benefit (regulation 18).

The Income Support (General) Regulations are amended to—

—0  provide that a claimant may be entitled to income support whilst absent from Great Britain if he had been incapable of work for 364 days before the absence began, or 196 days in the case of a claimant who is terminally ill or who is entitled to the highest rate of the care component of disability living allowance, and they provide that this period of incapacity may be broken by gaps of up to 56 days (regulation 5); E+W+S

—0  provide that a claimant who has failed the incapacity for work test and is appealing against that decision is not required to be available for work or to register for employment, but that a claimant in these circumstances who has failed the “all-work" test will have the personal allowance element of his applicable amount reduced by 20 per cent (regulations 6, 8 and 9); E+W+S

—0  provide that a person is exempt from the requirement to be available for work where he is incapable of work or where he fails the incapacity test solely on grounds of misconduct or similar matters (regulation 14); E+W+S

—0  provide that a student may be entitled to income support if his applicable amount includes the disability premium or severe disability premium, or if he has been incapable of work for 196 days, and they provide that this period of incapacity may be broken by gaps of up to 56 days (regulation 15); E+W+S

—0  extend the qualifying period for the disability premium on grounds of incapacity for work from 28 weeks to 364 days, except for claimants who are terminally ill, and they provide that the qualifying period may be broken by gaps of up to 56 days; they also permit the disability premium to be excluded from the applicable amount in respect of any period during which a claimant fails the incapacity test on grounds of misconduct or similar matters (regulations 16 and 17); and E+W+S

—0  make additional minor consequential and transitional amendments, and savings (regulations 7, 10 to 13, 19 and 20). E+W+S

Regulations 2 and 18 of these Regulations are made under section 129(2B) of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 and section 12(1) of the Social Security (Incapacity for Work) Act 1994 respectively and regulations 5, 7, 10 to 14, 16, 19(1) to (4) and 20 are made under section 12 of the Social Security (Incapacity for Work) Act 1994, and are made before the end of the period of six months beginning with the coming into force of that provision. Accordingly they are exempted by section 173(5)(a) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 from reference to the Social Security Advisory Committee and have not been so referred.

An assessment of the cost to business of applying these Regulations in so far as they relate to Disability Working Allowance has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses of Parliament. Copies can be obtained by post from: DSS Deregulation Unit, The Adelphi, John Adam Street, London WC2N 6HT.