Thread: Child maintenance payments and assessment of HB and CTB

New regulations have been issued in relation to the treatment of child maintenance payments in the assessment of housing benefit and council tax benefit.

In line with commitments given in the Chancellor's October 2007 pre-Budget report, the Social Security (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No.2) Regulations 2008 (SI.No.1042/2008 ) principally provide for child maintenance payments to be fully disregarded (i.e.not counted as income) in the assessment of housing benefit and council tax benefit from 27 October 2008.

NB - currently only £15/week of any maintenance payments can be disregarded.

The Social Security (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No.2) Regulations 2008 No. 1042

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The child maintenance payments will be "invisible", from 27/10/08 when calculating person's income for purposes of HB/CTB. IS is not affected by this regulation. This is my understanding but I will post further clarification if I understood incorrectly.

Please help me get my head round the logic of this. As I understand, any CSA money received is retained (barr £10) where the recipient is also on IS. So, say someone is receiving £200 a week in CSA, how does the benefits agency justify retaining £190 of it - that's more than the IS being received? Does that not work out as the benefits office making a profit?

Also, what about CSA that is made partially up of arrears. Say someone receives £200 a week but that £50 of that is arrears relating to a period prior to the recipient being on any sorts of benefits. Surely, that protion must lawfully be ignored and be passed unhindered to the parent?

If you regularly receive CSA and this amount is bigger then your income support then you'd be better off stopping your income support. Currently though, HB/CTB would count £185 a week as your income (assuming you receive £200 pw of maintenance) but from October 08, the whole £200 will not be counted as an income.
I find this example improbable though, because if DWP knew that you are getting more in IS then your applicable amount, they would stop your claim anyway. DWP only keeps paying IS if the maintenance received is smaller then your applicable amount (basic amount that the government says that you need to survive on). So DWP would not keep £190 pw, instead they would stop your claim.

Thanks Joa, makes sense about IS being stopped.

Whilst I don't receive child maintenance myself I know from past experience that there are lots of PWCs who are on benefits and receiving arrears as part of their regular CSA payments. Do the DWP recognise the arrears as being ignored in the calculation?

Child maintenance disregard in income support, income-based JSA and income-based employment and support allowance will increase from £10 to £20 per week, from 27 October 2008.

This crazy government. Increasing the amount of disregard is only going to make it more advantageous to be single and cost the taxpayer a fortune.

Whwn will the government try to lower the burden on the general state?


If you can't beat them, join them.

It seems to me that for every new rule, two more are made to counter it; it's just an ever increasing mountain of layered form filling and confusion for the honest recipient whilst provided added methods for the unscrupulous to manipulate the system.

Originally Posted by Stopthethieves

Whwn will the government try to lower the burden on the general state?

When they stop wasting money on maladministration, unwanted and idiotic projects, bad contracts, half-baked ideas, official errors, bureaucracy...need I go on?

I am not naive enough to believe that tax payer burden is caused by lone parents.

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...e-insight.html

can you help on this thread joa much appreciated
patrickq1