Discretionary Housing Benefit and DLA

[Tatty_Tat]

In a few forums I have seen people upset that DLA is being taking into account in the desicion on awarding Discretionary Housing benefit ... effectively causing the claimant to lose the DLA income. Is this just scare mongering or does it have legs?

[vikstar]

LA's do have discretion now.

"3.9 For example, you may decide to disregard income from disability related benefits as they are intended to be used to help pay for the extra costs of disability. You may also want to bear in mind that such money might be committed to other liabilities for which the money was intended, such as Motability schemes or provision of care."

From.

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/discretio...ents-guide.pdf

In my opinion, you could argue this by quoting the Judge in The Burnip Case.

http://www.youreable.com/forums/show...ll=1#post30548

[davewhit]

In a few forums I have seen people upset that DLA is being taking into account in the desicion on awarding Discretionary Housing benefit ... effectively causing the claimant to lose the DLA income. Is this just scare mongering or does it have legs?

Different councils are all doing ther own thing, the magic word is "Discretionary " so they can choose to do as they want, a search of this forum alone will show you people who have had it counted as income and others who have not.

Anything they decide to do can be appealed and Vikstar points you in a way to go to do this.

[davidmcs1]

I sent in the form for discretionary payments to my local council 2 weeks ago and as yet have had no reply, as Dave says it is not possible to guage things from one council to another as they all seem to vary, will just have to wait on the reply i suppose but this is causing such worry, this government should hang its head in shame.

[vikstar]

Council defines when a bedroom is a boxroom.

http://speye.wordpress.com/2013/05/0...-is-a-boxroom/

[Unruhe]

They can and do. The payments are discretionary. Now if you actually do spend your DLA on something, like a carer or something, you can put that down under expenditure. If you just pocket your DLA and say "it's for my care" when you aren't spending it on that, the council has a point. However, different LAs interpret the rules differently. DHP budgets are not enormous and if every disabled person got one to cover the shortfall, the money would be gone very quickly.

That said, you can argue your point and see what happens. Trouble is, it never generates caselaw because it's not governed by HMCTS.

[vikstar]

That is correct, all disputes regarding DHP's are carried out internally by the LA. Whereas an appeal regarding payment of HB can be sent forward to the Appeals Tribunal Service.

[davewhit]

They can and do. The payments are discretionary. Now if you actually do spend your DLA on something, like a carer or something, you can put that down under expenditure. If you just pocket your DLA and say "it's for my care" when you aren't spending it on that, the council has a point. However, different LAs interpret the rules differently. DHP budgets are not enormous and if every disabled person got one to cover the shortfall, the money would be gone very quickly.

That said, you can argue your point and see what happens. Trouble is, it never generates caselaw because it's not governed by HMCTS.

if everyone who wants one asked people would only get a percentage of what they need, and in a couple of years time when the extra cash is cut people wont get help each year