Calculating days of absence - is it now the same for HB and for CTS

Hi I have a client who had her HB and CTR stopped after she notified the local authority benefits office that she would go abroad for 4 week.  Annoyingly she seems to have been abroad for 1 day too long, as apparently the day she leaves counts as day of absence from home [CPAG handbook p 53 , footnote 60 KdeS v Camden [2011] UKUT 457 (AAC), which I suppose is still binding, even though it does not make sense to me ]

In KdeS, there was a difference between HB and CTR which used the words from the first full day of absence.  We don’t have the HB legislation book and I cannot find the up to date version of the CTS default scheme.  The Council Tax Reduction Schemes (Default Scheme) (England) Regulations 2012 (2012 No. 2886) still use the words first full day, but I wonder whether this has been changed now.

I would be grateful for any help.

Hi Andrea, it might depend on whether your client is over or under pension credit age? If she is, it’s default rules that apply and 4 weeks absence would apply generally, if she isn’t, then it’s down to the local rules as they’ve decided them I think.

Hi Paul

Thanks for your reply.

The claimant is under pension age and I am still trying to get details of that LA’s scheme. I think they applied more or less the default scheme for everyone initially, but this might have changed by now.
Anyway, I have now been made aware of some amended regulations SI 2016 No 1262 which uses the same wording as the HB regs (from the first day of absence) and not the wording from the CT regs quoted in the KdeS v Camden decision, which was ‘from the first full day of absence’.  So even though I don’t know when the wording first changed, I doubt that the LA’s scheme for under pension age is more generous than the curent default scheme.

Andrea