Supplementary Benefits Act 1976

3 (1) A deduction notice shall come into force when it is served on the employer of the claimant to whom it relates and shall (unless previously cancelled by virtue of paragraph 2(6) above or sub-paragraph (2) below) cease to have effect as soon as any of the following events occur—

(a) the claimant dies or ceases to be in the employment of the person on whom the deduction notice was served ;

(b) the aggregate of—

(i) all amounts, if any, repaid by the claimant on or after the date of the deduction notice in question ; and

(ii) all amounts, if any, deducted from the claimant's earnings by virtue of the deduction notice in question or, if the condition specified in sub-paragraph (4) below is fulfilled in the case of the notice in question, all amounts, if any, deducted from the claimant's earnings by virtue of that notice of any relevant previous deduction notice within the meaning of that sub-paragraph;

reaches the amount specified in the notice in question as the amount by reference to which deductions are to be made by the employer;

(c) the expiration of the period of fourteen weeks beginning with the date of the notice.

(2) The Secretary of State may at any time give a direction in writing cancelling a deduction notice, and shall cause a copy of any such direction to be served on the employer concerned and on the claimant. A direction given under this sub-paragraph shall take effect when a copy of it is served on the employer concerned.

(3) Where a deduction notice is cancelled under sub-paragraph (2) above, no further deduction notice relating to the claimant shall be served in connection with any supplementary benefit awarded to him by virtue of section 9(1) of this Act during the period of fifteen days from the beginning of the relevant engagement.

(4) If, in the case of a deduction notice which is in force (in this sub-paragraph referred to as " the current notice ") the following condition is fulfilled, namely that at the time when that notice was served on the employer there was in force in relation to the claimant a previous deduction notice served on the same employer after the beginning of the relevant engagement, each of the following shall for the purposes of sub-paragraph (1)(b)(ii) above constitute a relevant previous deduction notice, that is to say—

(i) that previous deduction notice ; and

(ii) any earlier previous deduction notice relating to the claimant which was served on that employer after the beginning of the relevant engagement, if (subject to sub-paragraph (5) below) the claimant was continuously in the employment of that employer from the time when the earlier previous notice in question was served to the time when the current notice was served.

(5) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (4) above the continuity of a period of employment under the same employer shall be treated as having been broken on any occasion on which a deduction notice relating to the employee, which was served on the employer after the beginning of the relevant engagement, ceased to have effect by reason of the expiration of the period of fourteen weeks mentioned in sub-paragraph (1)(c) above.