Workshop Details

Housing Benefit Update
 
Understanding HB Claims Involving Non-dependants & Family Matters With Household Composition

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Next Regional Workshop dates on this subject - October/November 2009. 
 
IN-HOUSE WORKSHOPS - Do you have a lot of staff needing this training and would you like us to arrange this Workshop at your own training venue just for the staff from your own organisation? We would be pleased to arrange this - please contact us for further details and availabilty of dates. ______________________________________________________________________________

Non-dependants have a big impact on HB and CTB claims. In many cases the presence of an adult son, daughter, friend or relative in the claimant’s household can mean a substantial reduction in the amount of HB and CTB payable. But there are a huge number of rules about when a deduction does and does not apply – and (when it does) how much it should be. It is therefore very important that both benefit assessors and income management / arrears recovery officers are aware of the potential impact of calculating benefit claims incorrectly.

Recent evidence has shown that both administrators and advisors quite often make mistakes, The result is that claimants with already low incomes can find that incorrect deductions are being made from their benefit – or that they are being asked to repay benefit when deductions that should have been made were omitted. Errors such as these can make a difference of nearly £3,000 per year in a claimant’s benefit entitlement – and that’s only when one non-dependant has been wrongly assessed!

In the current economic climate £3,000 per year could be of enormous importance in staving off poverty and even homelessness. It is therefore important that benefit assessment staff, debt recovery advisors and income management staff have a good understanding of the rules of how these allowances are assessed.

This Workshop looks at all the rules about non-dependants (and others in the claimant’s household) including:

• Who does and who does not count as a non-dependant;
• When a reduction should and should not be applied;
• The amounts of the reductions to be applied;
• How a non-dependant’s income is assessed;
• The special rules for older claimants and those on disability;
• The definitions of remunerative and other work;
• The errors Councils can make in applying too high a reduction;
• Getting errors corrected – in the short term and the longer term;
• Technicalities involving non-dependant couples.

The Workshop will also look at related matters to do with household composition, including:

• When children stay with relatives or elsewhere;
• HB/CTB issues with fostering and adopting;
• When a partner is absent to look for work;
• Larger households, including those with more than one benefit ‘family’;
• Paying less Council Tax to reflect household composition;
• How non-dependants on a low income can reduce the claimant’s Council Tax.

By means of presentations, discussions and exercises our presenter, John Zebedee, will provide a fact-filled day covering all the latest allowances, the various rule changes that have taken place during 2008/09 and those introduced from April 2009. Extensive course notes and several helpful examples will beprovided.