DWP sets out how payments from coronavirus support schemes for employees and self-employed impact on housing benefit

New edition of LA Welfare Direct also clarifies that a housing benefit claim can be accepted from a person who has reached state pension age even where universal credit has not terminated

In new guidance, the DWP has set out how payments from support schemes for employees and the self-employed, established in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, impact on housing benefit.

In LA Welfare Direct 4/2020, published today, the DWP provides guidance in relation to -

• the treatment of self-employed income and the new Self-employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), advising that the SEISS grant remains a payment of taxable income received from self-employment and is therefore part of the self-employed income assessment for the tax year in which it is received, that reductions in self-employed income should be treated in the usual manner, and that ongoing self-employed income should be recalculated based on the claimant’s new statement of income and expenditure;
• the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), advising that the CJRS enables employers to continue to make payments to their employees of taxable earned income, which continue to be treated as earned income in housing benefit, and that this continues to be based on the number of hours the employee normally works, which enables the additional earnings disregard in housing benefit to remain applicable; and
• childcare costs, advising that, for claimants who are no longer paying a childcare provider to care for their child, the changes should be treated in the usual manner and childcare costs removed from the benefit claim (although any additional amounts paid as part of a tax credit claim for childcare continue to be treated as income for housing benefit purposes).

NB - the bulletin also advises, in relation to claimants reaching state pension age, that -

'When a claimant reaches state pension age they are no longer entitled to universal credit. Any payment the claimant has received from universal credit after they have reached state pension age is not paid in respect of a legal entitlement. In other words, it is an extra statutory payment. As such it is not a bar to housing benefit entitlement which means a claim for housing benefit can be accepted even though the universal credit claim hasn’t been terminated. The universal credit payments can be disregarded when calculating the housing benefit award as they are extra statutory.'

LA Welfare Direct 4/2020 is available from gov.uk