The Social Security (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2007

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations further amend:

• the Income Support (General) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1987 (“the Income Support Regulations”);

• the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996 (“the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations”);

• the State Pension Credit Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003 (“the State Pension Credit Regulations”);

• the Social Security (Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit Consequential Amendments) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003 (“the 2003 Regulations”);

• the Social Fund Maternity and Funeral Expenses (General) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005 (“the Social Fund Regulations”);

• the Housing Benefit Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 (“the Housing Benefit Regulations”); and

• the Housing Benefit (Persons who have attained the qualifying age for state pension credit) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 (“the Housing Benefit (SPC) Regulations”).

Regulation 2 amends the Income Support Regulations to:

• provide for the circumstances where a higher pensioner premium, disability premium, enhanced disability premium and disabled child premium is to cease to be applicable to a claimant where the claimant, a partner of a claimant or a child or young person is a long-term patient;

• provide that “long-term patient” means a person who has been a patient for more than 52 weeks;

• remove the special applicable amounts in Schedule 7 that apply where a claimant, or if a claimant is a member of a couple the other member of that couple, has been a long-term patient; and

• make a minor amendment to remove a reference to an obsolete sub-paragraph in Schedule 2 to those Regulations.

Regulation 3 amends the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations to:

• provide for the circumstances where a higher pension premium, disability premium, enhanced disability premium and disabled child premium is to cease to be applicable to a claimant or a joint-claim couple where a claimant, a partner of a claimant or a child or young person is a long-term patient;

• provide that “long-term patient” means a person who has been a patient for more than 52 weeks; and

• remove the special applicable amounts in Schedules 4 and 4A that apply where a claimant or a member of a joint-claim couple is a long-term patient.

Regulations 2 and 3 amend the Income Support Regulations and the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations to:

• clarify that charitable and voluntary payments are wholly disregarded for the purposes of calculating income other than earnings;

• specify that ordinary clothing and footwear does not include school uniforms or clothing or footwear used solely for sporting activities for the purposes of calculating amounts from access funds which are to be treated as capital;

• insert correct cross-references in relation to the definition of a “person from abroad”; and

• replace outdated references to invalid care allowance with “carer’s allowance”.

Regulations 2, 3 and 5 amend Schedule 7 to the Income Support Regulations, Schedule 4 to the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations and the 2003 Regulations to remove the reduction in a claimant’s applicable amount for income support and jobseeker’s allowance that applies in certain circumstances where a child or young person has been a patient for more than 12 weeks.

Regulations 2 to 4, 7 and 8 amend the Income Support Regulations, the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations, the State Pension Credit Regulations, the Housing Benefit Regulations and the Housing Benefit (SPC) Regulations so that an award of carer’s allowance is only taken into account from the date on which it is first paid.

Regulations 2, 3 and 7 amend cross-references, in the Income Support Regulations, the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations and the Housing Benefit Regulations, to provisions (which were amended by S.R. 2006 No. 359) relating to the treatment of capital which is derived from an award of damages for a personal injury for the purposes of determining notional income or capital.

Regulation 6 makes a minor amendment to a definition in the Social Fund Regulations.

Regulations 7 and 8 amend the Housing Benefit Regulations and the Housing Benefit (SPC) Regulations to remove references to satellite television and to provide that television subscription charges are ineligible service charges for housing benefit purposes in Schedule 1 of those Regulations.

Regulation 9 makes consequential revocations.

In so far as these Regulations are required, for the purposes of regulations 7 and 8, to be referred to the Social Security Advisory Committee under section 149(2) of the Social Security Administration (Northern Ireland) Act 1992, after agreement by the Social Security Advisory Committee, they have not been so referred by virtue of section 150(1)(b) of that Act. Otherwise they make in relation to Northern Ireland only provision corresponding to provision contained in Regulations made by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in relation to Great Britain and accordingly, by virtue of section 149(3) of, and paragraph 10 of Schedule 5 to, that Act, are not subject to the requirement of section 149(2) for prior reference to the Social Security Advisory Committee.