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L'înformâtion et les sèrvices publyis pouor I'Île dé Jèrri

Income Support (General Provisions) (Jersey) Order: Proposed Amendments

A formal published “Ministerial Decision” is required as a record of the decision of a Minister (or an Assistant Minister where they have delegated authority) as they exercise their responsibilities and powers.

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A decision made on 16 August 2012:

Decision Reference: MD-S-2012-0069

Decision Summary Title :

DS – Law drafting instructions - Income Support General Provisions (Jersey) Order 2008

Date of Decision Summary:

16  August 2012

Decision Summary Author:

Policy Principal

Decision Summary:

Public or Exempt?

Public

Type of Report:

Oral or Written?

Written

Person Giving

Oral Report:

N/A

Written Report

Title :

WR - Law drafting instructions - Income Support General Provisions (Jersey) Order 2008

Date of Written Report:

16  August 2012

Written Report Author:

Policy Principal

Written Report :

Public or Exempt?

Public

Subject: Law drafting instructions - Income Support General Provisions (Jersey) Order 2008

Decision(s): The Minister decided to request law drafting for amendments to the Income Support General Provisions (Jersey) Order 2008

 

Reason(s) for Decision:

 

Changes to the Income Support General Provisions Order are requested in order to bring various areas of the Order in line with recent changes in Income Support Regulations and the administration of the Income Support Benefit.  A new Income Support application form and award letter have been created, leading to the need to amend sections of the legislation that deal with the notification of benefit awarded to claimants, and further amendments to the kind of information specified on application for benefit are needed due to the recent change in Income Support residency requirements.

In addition, as noted in the report accompanying P.56 (IS Regs (Amendment no 8)), the disregard in respect of pension income available to claimants aged 65 and above is to be increased in line with the uprating of the Jersey old-age pension.

 

Resource Implications: There are no manpower implications for these changes. The cost of increasing the pension disregard is included in the Income Support cash limit.

Action required: Policy Principal to submit drafting instructions to the Law Draftsman’s Office.

Signature:

 

 

Position:

Minister

 

Date Signed:

 

Date of Decision (If different from Date Signed):

 

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Income Support (General Provisions) (Jersey) Order: Proposed Amendments

Law drafting - changes to IS General Provisions Order

 

Background

Changes to the Income Support General Provisions Order are requested in order to bring various areas of the Order in line with recent changes in Income Support Regulations and the administration of the Income Support Benefit.  A new Income Support application form and award letter have been created, leading to the need to amend sections of the legislation that deal with the notification of benefit awarded to claimants, and further amendments to the kind of information specified on application for benefit are needed due to the recent change in Income Support residency requirements.

In addition, as noted in the report accompanying P.56 (IS Regs (Amendment no 8)), the disregard in respect of pension income available to claimants aged 65 and above is to be increased in line with the uprating of the Jersey old-age pension.

 

Adults in an IS Household

Following changes to the definition of an income support household last year, the following young adults are included in the Income Support household of their parents:

  • jobseekers aged under 19
  • students in full-time education aged under 25.

The Minister wishes to differentiate between :

  • the adult claimant, and the adult partner of the adult claimant, and 
  • young adults who are also included within the claim. 

This affects two areas of the Income Support GPO.

1.  Article 12(2)
 

Article 12(2) currently requires that the determining officer notifies the claimant in writing, as well as all adult members of the household.  The Department has recently created a new award letter, which is automatically generated when an IS claim is opened and is sent to all adult participants on a claim.  The new design includes a detailed breakdown of the way the weekly benefit rate has been calculated. It shows all of the income, savings, maintenance payments and benefit entitlement for the Income Support Household.  This  has created an issue whereby adult children could potentially receive a letter showing a detailed breakdown of their parents’ income and savings. 

The current wording of Article 12(2):

 12 (2)    The determining officer shall notify in writing the claimant (or other person acting on his or her behalf) and all the other adult members of the claimant’s household –

(a)     of every determination or decision made in respect of the household and the reasons for it; and

(b)     of their rights to challenge the determination or decision as set out in paragraph (3) in the case of a first determination or as set out in paragraph (4) in the case of a redetermination


needs to be amended so that the only adults to be notified are the claimant and their spouse, partner or civil partner. This could be done by specifically excluding persons mentioned in Article 5(2)a and 5(2)b (adults under the age of 19 who are registered as jobseekers and adults under the age of 25 remaining in full-time education):

(5)(2)    The circumstances mentioned in paragraph (1)(b) are that –

(a)     one of the persons is under 25 years and is excepted from the requirement to be engaged in full time remunerative work by virtue of Article 3(1)(e) of the Law (persons undergoing education or training on any course approved by the Minister) but does not meet the criteria for the rate payable in respect of the personal care element of the impairment component under paragraph 6(3)(b) or (c) of Schedule 1 to the Regulations; or

(b)     one of the persons is under 19 years and is excepted from the requirement to be engaged in full time remunerative work by virtue of Article 3(1)(g) of the Law (persons available for, and actively seeking, full time remunerative work) but does not meet the criteria for the rate payable in respect of the personal care element of the impairment component under paragraph 6(3)(b) or (c) of Schedule 1 to the Regulations

 

In situations where the adult  child needs to be notified of a change that affects them individually rather than their adult parent(s), the Income Support team would continue to send a letter to the adult child.

 

2.  Schedule 2(2). 

An additional change, in line with the change referred to above, needs to be made to Schedule 2(2).  The definition of adult in this section needs to be amended to reflect the changes elsewhere by specifically excluding persons mentioned in Article 5(2)a and 5(2)b (adults under the age of 19 who are registered as jobseekers; adults under the age of 25 remaining in full-time education), when determining whether there are 2 or more adults in a household.  It was never the intention for the higher capital disregards to apply to households that include the claimant and adult children, but no partner.  With a better definition of household,  it is appropriate to remove this anomaly.

2      Capital to be disregarded

(1)    The following amounts of capital shall be disregarded in assessing calculated income –

(a)     in the case of a household containing a sole adult under the age of 65 years where a member of the household meets the criteria for the personal care element of the impairment component under paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 to the Regulations

£13,706

(b)     in the case of any other household containing a sole adult under the age of 65 years

£9,137

(c)     in the case of a household containing 2 or more adults who are all under the age of 65 years where a member of the household meets the criteria for the personal care element of the impairment component under paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 to the Regulations

£22,718

(d)     in the case of any other household containing 2 or more adults who are all under the age of 65 years

£15,145

(e)     in the case of a household containing a sole adult aged 65 years or over

£13,706

(f)     in the case of a household containing 2 or more adults, at least one of whom is aged 65 years or over

 

 

Information needed as part of application process -Schedule 1
 

The change to residency rules necessitates some changes to the information required in Schedule 1.  There are also a number of other changes required to bring Schedule 1 in line with the information that will be requested on the new design of the IS application form.  A copy of the latest draft of the new IS form is attached. It is near completion, but may still undergo small changes.

Part 1(2) – ‘confirmation of period of ordinary residence in Jersey’ is now required of all adults in the household.  This condition should be removed from part 1(2)(Claimant) and inserted in part 1(3)(All adults in household). (NB - this does apply to all adults, including young jobseekers and students)

The new Income Support application form also requests that all adults declare marital status, so this should be inserted in part 1(3)(All adults in household).

The application form requests details of both rent and service charges, so ‘Service charge frequency and amount (if applicable)’ needs to be inserted in part 1(1)(Property details).

Part 1(6)(impairment) should be expanded to request the ’Name of doctor or other professional responsible for treatment’ as this is now a field on the IS form.

Part 1(8)(Capital Assets) should include any inheritance received whether by way of an allowance or “lump sums”, and the amount/s the claimant or member of the household receives by way of distributions from a trust.

Increase in pension disregard -  Schedule 2
 

Article 5 (Percentage of income to be disregarded) also needs to be revised in order to increase the pensions disregards.

In Schedule 2, paragraph 5(f) the words:

(f)     100% of the first £42.28 of any income derived from a pension or annuity of one person in the household aged 65 years or over;

 

Need to be replaced with:

(f)     100% of the first £XXXX of any income derived from a pension or annuity of one person in the household aged 65 years or over;

 

In Schedule 2, paragraph 5(g) the words:

(g)     100% of the first £27.23 of any income derived from a pension or annuity of any other person in the household aged 65 years or over;

 

Need to be replaced with:

(g)     100% of the first £XXXX of any income derived from a pension or annuity of any other person in the household aged 65 years or over;

 

Please note that the new values are not yet available.  The Department will receive advance notification of the 2012 earnings index on 17 August and will then be in a position to provide the law Draftsman with the new values.

 

Miscellaneous tidying up
 

Clarification is requested over the exact interpretation of Schedule 2 paragraph 3(1).   

This states;

(1)    If a person has directly or indirectly deprived himself or herself or any other person of any income or capital in order to qualify for income support or a special payment, the amount of that income or capital shall be included in his or her total income or capital as the case may be.

 

A query has arisen as to whether  the current wording could be interpreted to refer only to a person not currently receiving income support and divesting income or capital in order to ‘qualify’ for IS or an ISSP.

However if a person is already an IS claimant and they receive an amount that they then divest this is in essence being done in order to increase the amount of IS they would otherwise be entitled to.

The wording of this paragraph should include both the situation in which an individual deprives themselves of income or capital in order to apply for income support;  and the situation in which an individual is already receiving income support and deprives  themselves of income or capital in order to continue to receive  income support or to continue to receive  income support at the same rate.

Financial and manpower considerations


There are no manpower implications for these changes. The cost of increasing the pension disregard is included in the Income Support cash limit.

 

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