Bedroom tax and overnight carer

HB/CTB A4/2012 states an additional room if claimant or partner need overnight carer. IS it correct that if a child or non dep needs an overnight carer an extra room is not allowed?!

That’s hows it looks to me. The draft reg says ‘one additional bedroom in any case where the claimant or the claimant’s partner is a person who requires overnight care (or in any case where each of them is)’

Children excluded by omission?

The explanatory note also provided refers to the LHA regs, which operate in the same way.

Reg 2(1) HB regs 2006 defines ‘person who requires overnight care’ (or CPAG page 310)

i suppose the argument would be that the parent(s) are normally the primary carers anyway

Agreed, but it’s not hard to think of circumstances where that is not at all appropriate for parents to be night-time carers.

Not at all helpful for single parents. Both cases I have are single parents, one with a severely disabled young child, the other with a severely disabled adult child.

True, I wonder if the Burnip decision would be helpful for these cases. It looks like these people need extra assistance as a result of disabilities as well.

I did look at this but the disabled people are not sharing or required to share. I am going to apply for discretionary help but that is never very satisfactory as there is no guarantee.

I know the Burnip etc cases were directly about having to share rooms, but I wondered if it could be extended further. Part of the decision was that HB should be providing enough resources to meet disabled people’s needs, and in your cases the needs of the disabled child are not being met

Will have another look and will watch out for further guidance.
Thanks