Housing Benefit Run on - Continuous claiming of qualifying benefit

Hi Everyone,

In terms of the Housing Benefit run on when someone starts work and they have to be claiming a qualifying benefit for at least 26 weeks, in this instance does being sanctioned on JSA warrant a break in the continuous claim? Or does it still count as being continuous because the claim was still live?

Many Thanks.

The answer appears to be that it depends on the basis of the sanction.

Reg.2(3)(a) HB Regs 2006 states that for the purposes of the HB regulations, someone counts as being on ib-JSA where they satisfy the conditions of entitlement for ib-JSA but this isn’t being paid in accordance with s.19 of the Jobseekers Act (‘high-level’ sanctions) or under regs made under s.17A (Work for your benefit schemes).

Thus a sanction imposed under s.19A of the Jobseekers Act doesn’t appear to be afforded such protection. Also be aware that s.19A(3)  states that a failure under that section is not sanctionable if it is also sanctionable under s.19.

Whether this was a deliberate move is, to me, unclear - I’ve checked through the explanatory memorandum for SI 2012 No. 2568 that introduced s.19A and there isn’t a mention of any underlying entitlement to HB being protected when a sanction is imposed under the new regulation.

I wonder whether the Interpretation Act would apply here?  As I understand it ss19, 19A and 19B replaced the original s19, and since HB Reg 2(3) has not had any consequential amendment since then we should read the reference in that Reg to s19 as a reference to the expanded ss19 to 19B.

There is also the question whether we should read anything into the fact that Reg 2 treats a person as being “on” JSA while sanctioned, whereas the precise form of words used in the HB extended payment reg is “entitled to”, but that would be splitting hairs I think.

I would be inclined to say that the out-of-date reference in Reg 2(3) should be interpreted as catching the whole of the substituted provisions inserted into the Jobseekers Act by s46 of the WRA 2012.  In simple terms, any JSA conditionality sanction does not affect HB at all.

Thanks Peter, one would hope that you are correct, but I might try to seek some official clarification to be on the safe side.

We’ve been scratching about with this all day, and this is where we’re at, be interested to know what others think.

The old s.19 stated that even though someone was entitled to JSA, it wasn’t payable in any of the following circumstances, which covered the reasons for sanctions. Thus reg.2(3) of the HB regs was necessary to protect entitlement during a sanction period, by treating someone in that position as still receiving JSA, even though they weren’t.

The amended s.19 and s.19A instead state that “the mount of an award of JSA is to be reduced in accordance with this section in the event of failure etc etc..” – thus JSA remains payable legally, it’s just that the amount happens to be reduced by 100%.

This is why we think that reg.2(3) wasn’t amended, because it didn’t need to be, and indeed, it isn’t actually necessary for it to remain as the saving provision does not apply anyway. We’ve established that entitlement to maximum HB when iro JSA is because of income and capital being ignored under the relevant schedules, so there isn’t a question of passporting as such within the regulations.

What do you think?