Scottish Social Security Consortium

Minutes of meeting 9 May 2006

Present:
Judith Paterson - Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland
Lindsay Isaacs - Citizens Advice Scotland
Colette Cummings - RNIB
Lorna Bernard - HAIN
Chris Campbell - Oxfam
Estelle Biteau - The Action Group
Kate Higgins - Capability Scotland
Maggie Kelly - CPAG in Scotland: Tax Credits Project
Alison Gillies - CPAG in Scotland: Tax Credits Project
Rachel Jury - Poverty Alliance

Apologies
David Brown (Help the Aged), Stephanie Millar (Update) and Derek Sinclair (Contact a Family)

Welcome
Judith Paterson welcomed everyone to the meeting.

What's new? April 2006 changes to benefits and tax credits
Judith introduced her presentation by noting that although there were no radical changes this year in relation to benefits and tax credits, there were still quite a number of changes that advisers should be aware of. She then presented a summary of the key changes:

Benefit uprating:
Benefits have increased at just about the rate of inflation (contributory and non-contributory benefits increased by the RPI increase of 2.7% and means-tested benefits increased by the ROSSI index increase of 2.2%).This will not result in a significant increase in claimants' incomes and will not help the government to meet its child poverty targets, so in this context the level of uprating is disappointing. Note, however, that the child element of child tax credit has increased slightly more, as it has been increased in line with average earnings as committed to by the government.

Capital limits:
This is the first increase in capital limits since 1990. The limits have been simplified a lot - see table on handout for full details. However, advisers should be aware that as a result of the changes:

• new groups will have been brought into entitlement eg people who have capital over £8,000 but under £16,000, who would have been excluded by the previous capital limit of £8,000
• other claimants should ensure they are receiving the correct entitlement eg claimants with capital below £6,000 should no longer have tariff income included in their assessment, whereas they would have previously if they had capital above the old lower limit of £3,000

Benefits for young people:
Changes in this area have been quite significant.
Previously, parents could claim child benefit or child tax credits for children aged over 16, if they were in full-time non-advanced education. They could claim until the child's 19th birthday. The changes have now extended this entitlement to include young people undertaking government approved training courses, such as modern apprenticeships. Additionally, the period of entitlement has been extended so that as long as the young person has started the course of education or training before their 19th birthday, the benefit will remain in payment while they are 19 until the course has finished, but not beyond their 20th birthday.

Some young people, such as those who are estranged from and do not live with their parents, have been able to claim benefits in their own right eg income support and housing benefit. The age limit for this group has also been extended from 19 to 20, providing they are pursuing a course of full-time non-advanced education or government approved training.

Tax credits:
A number of changes to the tax credits system will be implemented in stages. For instance:

• From April 2006, the disregard for increases in income between one tax year and the next increased from £2,500 to £25,000. In other words, an income increase of up to £25,000 will have no impact on a claimant's tax credit award for the duration of the year. This is a positive policy change, as it will help to reduce the possibility of overpayments caused by income increases. However, the award is only 'protected' under these circumstances until the end of the year, so claimants should be advised to report the increase by April so that it is taken into account from the very beginning of the subsequent year's claim.
• From summer 2006, the deadline for the return of end of year information will be moved forward a month to the end of August. This is another welcome policy change as it will reduce the amount of time during which people will receive payments based on out of date information.
• From November 2006, it will become mandatory to report more changes in circumstance. Additionally, the recovery of within-year overpayments will be brought into line with the recovery for end of year payments ie limits will apply. This should result in a reduction in financial hardship.
  

Incapacity benefits - permitted work:
The permitted work rules have been amended to increase the situations in which people can continue to receive incapacity-related benefits whilst undertaking certain types of work. People can now do permitted work at the higher limit for up to 52 weeks. Additionally, there is a new category of permitted work for people exempt from the PCA, who can now undertake permitted work at the higher limit for an indefinite period.

Benefits for people in hospital:
From April, the rules have improved for people in hospital for over 52 weeks, as the previous 'pocket money' rate has been abolished. However, other reductions still apply: e.g. claimants are not entitled to disability living allowance care component after four weeks in hospital, and housing benefit/council tax benefit still stop after 52 weeks in hospital.

The appeals service:
The Appeals Service transferred from the Department for Work and Pensions to the Department for Constitutional Affairs in April, and is now part of the broader 'Tribunals Service', which deals with a range of other tribunals eg employment tribunals. However, no rules have changed so this move should have little impact on clients.

Social fund:
A positive change is the doubling of the capital limit for budgeting loans from £1,000 to £2,000, as this means more people will be eligible. Additionally, after an internal review by the DWP, claimants and/or advisers can now apply directly to the Independent Review Service if they want to challenge decisions about the discretionary elements of the social fund. Again, this is a positive move as it means that people will be able to access the services of the IRS more quickly.

Case law:
Judith reported that a recent Tribunal of Commissioners had decided that difficulty walking due to pain in relation to assessments of DLA must have some sort of identifiable physical cause. In other words, a person's psychological experience of pain is not on its own sufficient. Previous commissioners' decisions have been inconsistent on this point. The full extent of the pain does not have to be accounted for by the physical cause(s), although it must contribute a significant amount.

Overpayments:
As a result of a recent Court of Appeal decision, there has recently been a change to the long-standing practice of claimants being able to win appeals against recovery of overpayments on the grounds that it was not reasonable to expect them to disclose. The upshot is that overpayment appeals will now be much harder to win. Judith referred group members to an article in CPAG's Welfare Rights Bulletin, issue 191, p7 for further details.

Update of the Scottish Campaign on Welfare Reform

Lindsay Isaacs introduced Rachel Jury from the Poverty Alliance, who updated the group on responses to the Scottish Campaign on Welfare Reform's (SCWR) joint letter. Rachel noted that the response had thus far been fairly disappointing, with responses from only five MPs: Menzies Campbell, Alex Salmond, Peter Wishaw, Alistair Carmichael and John Reid.

Since the letter had been issued, a number of organisations had officially joined up to the campaign: Unison, Children in Need in Scotland, Oxfam, Shelter and RNIB. It was agreed that Kate Higgins would also ensure that all the DAS organisations who want to sign up have done so.

Kate Higgins then updated the group on phase two of SCWR's work, a postcard campaign intended to get real people involved, as opposed to representatives of organisations. The campaign will be launched on Monday 29 May, and Kate is looking for people who might be affected by the changes (eg a lone parent, a disabled person, someone who is 'cross-cutting' and does not fit neatly into any one group) who are media-willing. In advance of this date, members of the SSSC should distribute the postcards to their members/offices, so that they are ready to be distributed to the public as soon as possible after the launch. It was agreed that some boxes of postcards would be sent to the Glasgow offices of CPAG in Scotland and Poverty Alliance, so that they could be picked up more easily by west-coast based organisations. There was some group discussion regarding using the postcards as a further hook to try and get MPs to sign up to the campaign.

The group then discussed what future work the joint campaign should be considering. Specifically, SCWR needs to tackle the issue of devolved policy areas and how to get the reforms on the radar of MSPs. Additionally, it was agreed that it would be good to have discussions - and hopefully build alliances - with the chief executives of NHS boards (as their budgets will be affected by the proposed reforms) and the BMA (as many GPs are not happy with the reforms).

It is thought that the government will release its response to the consultation at the end of the summer recess, and will simultaneously issue a draft of the bill. It was agreed that it would therefore be important to keep in touch over the summer, so that the group is primed and ready to respond. It was therefore agreed that a meeting would be held by Capability Scotland, CAS, CPAG in Scotland and the Poverty Alliance to plan a forward strategy. Any other members are welcome to feed their ideas into this meeting.

Information Exchange

CPAG in Scotland Tax Credits Project
Two representatives of the project - Maggie Kelly and Alison Gillies - gave an overview of their work. The project is designed to build on earlier work by CPAG in Scotland, and it will encompass a number of different activities such as offering training courses and writing/issuing information and fact sheets. Other possible ways of taking the project forward include a 'gap analysis' of what is currently offered and what might be missing, developing links with partnership organisations, developing an e-bulletin and issuing up to date information on the CPAG in Scotland website.

Other issues
Kate Higgins reported that Capability Scotland had responded to the Scottish Executive's consultation on prescription charges and called for an extension of free provision. They are also looking at the fact that children under three are currently unable to qualify for the mobility component of DLA. It was noted that previous campaigning work done on this issue by the Disability Alliance resulted in the age being lowered from five to three.

Judith Patterson informed the group that CPAG in Scotland would be holding its annual conference on 16 June. The topic is welfare reform.

Lindsay Isaacs informed the group that CAS would be holding its annual conference on 16/17 August. This year's topic is 'Changing Lives'.

Dates and topics for future meetings

• Thursday 28 September, Glasgow: It was agreed that a representative from the Veteran's Agency would be invited to the meeting
• Monday 20 November, Edinburgh: It was agreed that, depending on progress, an update on the Glasgow City Pilot that has resulted from the welfare reforms

Back to the Scottish Social Security Consortium main page

For more information contact:
Judith Paterson
Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland,
Unit 9, Ladywell
94 Duke Street,
Glasgow G4 0UW
0141 552 3303
email jpaterson@cpagscotland.org.uk

Abigail Bremner
Citizens Advice Scotland
Spectrum House
2 Powderhall Road
Edinburgh EH7 4GB
0131 550 1000
email bremnera@cas.org.uk