Can anyone tell me how/if will surplus difference impacts on other bens. Is it classed as income, say, for Income Support?

Under Schedule 9, para 5 of the IS (General) Regs, any payment of HB should (must), be disregarded for calculating the income available to a person on IS. This same rule applies to other means tested benefits too. Any surplus is therefore just that, and is available for the Housing Benefit claimant to keep! However,

after reading through some of the initial findings of the SHA HB scheme, it appears that there is some evidence of landlords' increasing rents to the SHA thresholds, much as I feared... how often this money will actually be available remains a mute point !!!