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Are there any other CTRS including a MIF provision? 

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Peter Turville
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Charles - 23 January 2020 04:13 PM

Those regs are the minimum requirements for pensioners. I don’t think any LA has tried to use a MIF for pensioners.

Thanks Charles.

Does that mean there are no detailed equivalent provisions or ‘default scheme’ in England for working age claimants (aside from procedural issues in Schs. 7&8) and councils are free to adopt different rules on the calculation of earnings, income, capital etc - or reproduce the SPC rules (or CTB regs) wholly or partly in its working age scheme’?

Charles
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There is a default scheme, which has a MIF for UC claimants who have a MIF applied within UC (as it uses the income figure calculated for UC).

However, this was only a default scheme, and councils are free to do what they want.

Peter Turville
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Charles - 23 January 2020 05:16 PM

There is a default scheme, which has a MIF for UC claimants who have a MIF applied within UC (as it uses the income figure calculated for UC).

However, this was only a default scheme, and councils are free to do what they want.

Thanks again Charles.
For some reason the England default scheme regs are not in Sweet & Maxwell. The relevant LA has used the SPC rules in its working age scheme re s/e earnings. Out client is not on UC (a MIF would not apply if he were as severely disabled). The VT hearing is next month - we shall see .....

Jon Blackwell
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From the LA’s replies to the consultation responses it looks like their attitude to any potential hardship caused by MIF was ‘get more work or go and get another job’. (Many) other LAs explicitly highlighted discretionary support as a potential mitigation when introducing MIF and/or they have more flexible MIF provisions than this one.

( See response 1,4 bottom p45 http://mycouncil.oxford.gov.uk/documents/g4335/Public%20reports%20pack%20Monday%2029-Jan-2018%2017.00%20Council.pdf?T=10#page=45 )

It seems odd that they won’t consider discretionary support in this case given they’ve now taken the MIF out (tacitly admitting it was a mistake).

( see para 9 page http://mycouncil.oxford.gov.uk/documents/g4343/Public%20reports%20pack%20Monday%2028-Jan-2019%2017.00%20Council.pdf?T=10#page=35 )

Presumably members were asleep when they rubber-stamped it’s introduction in 2018 ... maybe it’s worth trying to get some pressure from them in this case?


Unfortunately, across England it looks like more LAs will be adding MIF provisions in 2020/21 e.g. Dover, Tonbridge&Malling;,  Mid Sussex.  On the other hand there are some going the other way and getting rid - e.g. Hambleton.

One LA officer has told me that they would only consider applying a CTR MIF in “exceptional circumstances”  - unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be a universal approach.


I noticed one odd thing about the 68 local schemes with a current MIF - 40 of them are ACS type schemes even though ACS provide/provided fewer than 40% of all 317 schemes - so ACS schemes are twice as likely to have a MIF provision than home-grown (or other provider) schemes.

 

Charles
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Peter Turville - 24 January 2020 09:14 AM

For some reason the England default scheme regs are not in Sweet & Maxwell.

That’s probably because the have no legal effect now. They were only made for use as a CTR scheme in the first year for any LA which didn’t make their own scheme. For this reason they have never been updated.

Mr Finch
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The Isle of Wight has introduced MIF.

The idea of an MIF is to stop people avoiding conditionality by claiming to be self-employed. I can’t see any legitimate reason for it in council tax, which isn’t subject to conditionality.

HB Anorak
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Had this conversation many times with local authorities.  There are some (not all by any means but some) HB staff who wish they could introduce a similar rule in HB.  When I make the same point you have about conditionality and how HB and CTR are means tested but otherwise no strings, what I normally find is that they don’t really believe claimants who say they have made next to nothing for years and years.  Having an MIF rule is a way of taking into account the income that officers believe the claimant secretly has anyway without having to prove it.

As a self-employed person myself, I don’t doubt that there is a fair amount of low level means test fraud by self-employed people who under-declare their earnings, but there are also plenty others whose “business” is a hopeless project often undertaken at the encouragement of DWP back in the days when signing off and claiming WTC was a good way to get you off DWP’s books.  I am curating an anthology of ludicrous self-employment ranging from downright bogus to well-intentioned but deluded.  The parcel courier with no van who uses buses; the telephone cat whisperer etc etc.  People will have their own views on whether or not it is a legitimate aim of UC to make life impossible for these people so they have to jack it in and sign on, but at least DWP employs people who are supposed to be able to help you find proper paid work.  I don’ really see it as within the remit of HB and CTR.

Peter Turville
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In our experience the claimants we dealt with who had a LCTR MIF imposed had long term illnesses or disabilities and were originally undertaking s/e under the ESA ‘permitted work’ rule often undertaking, as Peter puts it, a hopeless project but had migrated to UC. They were protected under UC from full conditionality but not under the LCTR MIF provision which did not have the same protection - as in Oxford’s now removed rule.

Is Oxford the first council to abandon a MIF provision (edit: no - see above)?

In our clients case they have just revised the original decision imposing a MIF in advance of the VT hearing listed for next week.

[ Edited: 19 Feb 2020 at 09:56 am by Peter Turville ]