PART IE+W+SGeneral

Right to benefit of voluntary organisationsE+W+S

17.—(1) Subject to the following provisions of this regulation, a voluntary organisation shall for the purposes of benefit be regarded as a person with whom a child is living, and the only person with whom that child is living, for any week in which that child is—

(a)living in premises which are provided or managed by the voluntary organisation, being premises which are required to be registered with a Government Department or local authority or which are otherwise regulated under or by virtue of any enactment relating to England and Wales or Scotland; or

(b)boarded out by the voluntary organisation in the home of any person in accordance with the provisions of the Boarding-Out of Children Regulations 1955 or [F1the Boarding-out and Fostering of Children (Scotland) Regulations 1985]

(2) A voluntary organisation shall not be regarded as a person with whom a child is living in any week unless in that week the child is actually living with the voluntary organisation in accordance with the provisions of paragraph (1); so however that a voluntary organisation shall not be regarded as having ceased to have a child living with it by reason only of any temporary absence of that child F2...—

(a)if the child is undergoing medical or other treatment as an in-patient in a hospital, [F3until such absence has lasted] for more than 84 days; or

(b)if the child is temporarily absent for any other reason, [F4until such absence has lasted] for more than 56 days.

(3) In calculating for the purposes of paragraph (2)(a) whether a child has been temporarily absent for not more than 84 days, two or more distinct periods of temporary absence separated by one or more intervals each not exceeding 28 days shall be treated as a continuous period equal in duration to the total of such distinct periods and ending on the last day of the latter or last of such periods.

(4) A voluntary organisation shall not be regarded as a person with whom a child is living in any week if in that week—

(a)that child is in residential accommodation pursuant to arrangements made under section 12 of the Health Services and Public Health Act 1968 M1 or section 27(1) of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1947 M2; or

(b)paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Act (exclusion from entitlement to benefit in respect of children in detention, care etc.) applies to that child.

(5) Where immediately before the week in which paragraph (1) applies to a child that child was living with a person who was then entitled to benefit in respect of it, the said paragraph (1) shall, while under section 3(2) of the Act that child would be treated as continuing to live with that person, have effect in relation to that person as if the words “and the only person with whom that child is living” were omitted.

(6) Section 3(1)(6) of the Act (person to be treated as responsible for a child in any week if he is contributing to the cost of providing for the child at a weekly rate not less than the weekly rate of benefit payable in respect of the child for that week) and regulation 16(6) shall not apply to a voluntary organisation.

[F5(7) Where a person makes a claim for child benefit in respect of a child on or after 24th November 1980, that person shall not be treated for the purposes of section 3(l)(b) of the Act as contributing to the cost of providing for that child for any week in which that child is boarded-out by a voluntary organisation in the home of that person in accordance with the provisions of the Boarding-Out of Children Regulations 1955 or [F6the Boarding-out and Fostering of Children (Scotland) Regulations 1985] .]

Textual Amendments

Marginal Citations