The Social Security (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2013

Amendments to the Housing Benefit (Persons who have attained the qualifying age for state pension credit) Regulations 2006

8.—(1) The Housing Benefit (Persons who have attained the qualifying age for state pension credit) Regulations 2006(1) are amended as follows.

(2) After the definition of “local housing allowance” in regulation 2(1) (interpretation), insert—

““local welfare provision” means occasional financial or other assistance given by a local authority, the Scottish Ministers or the Welsh Ministers, or a person authorised to exercise any function of, or provide a service to, them, to or in respect of individuals for the purpose of—

(a)

meeting, or helping to meet, an immediate short term need—

(i)

arising out of an exceptional event, or exceptional circumstances; and

(ii)

that requires to be met in order to avoid a risk to the well-being of an individual; or

(b)

enabling individuals to establish or maintain a settled home, where those individuals have been or, without the assistance, might otherwise be—

(i)

in prison, hospital, a residential care establishment or other institution; or

(ii)

homeless or otherwise living an unsettled way of life;”.

(3) In regulation 7 (circumstances in which a person is or is not to be treated as occupying a dwelling as his home)—

(a) in paragraph (8)(c)(ii)(2), after “pending”, insert “local welfare provision or”;

(b) for paragraph (16)(c)(i)(3), substitute—

“(i) a person to whom paragraph (16A) applies;”; and

(c) after paragraph (16), insert—

“(16A) This paragraph applies to a person (“P”) who is—

(a) detained in custody on remand pending trial;

(b) detained pending sentence upon conviction; or

(c) as a condition of bail required to reside—

(i) in a dwelling, other than a dwelling P occupies as P’s home; or

(ii) in premises approved under section 13 of the Offender Management Act 2007,

and who is not also detained in custody following sentence upon conviction.”.

(4) In Schedule 6 (capital to be disregarded)—

(a) in paragraph 21—

(i) after sub-paragraph (1)(e), insert—

“(f) by way of local welfare provision including arrears and payments in lieu of local welfare provision.”;

(ii) omit “or” at the end of sub-paragraph (2)(l)(4); and

(iii) after sub-paragraph (2)(m)(5) add—

“(n) social fund payments”; and

(b) after paragraph 26D(6), insert—

“26E.   Any payment in consequence of a reduction of council tax under section 13, 13A or 80 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 (reduction of liability for council tax), but only for a period of 52 weeks from the date of the receipt of the payment.”.

(1)

S.I. 2006/214.

(2)

Paragraph (8) was amended by S.I. 2007/2618 and 2008/1042.

(3)

Paragraph (16)(c)(i) was amended by S.I. 2008/2767.

(4)

Paragraph 21(2)(l) was inserted by S.I. 2005/2502.

(5)

Paragraph 21(2)(m) was inserted by S.I. 2008/1082.

(6)

Paragraph 26D was inserted by S.I. 2011/2425.