FOI request (FOIR-442268984)

Armed Forces Compensation Scheme

Requested Fri 05 August 2022
Responded  Tue 27 September 2022

Please respond to our Freedom of Information request by providing us with the following information:

1. Does the Local Authority disregard all payments made under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (2005) as income, when assessing eligibility for:

a. Housing Benefit

b. Council Tax Support/Council Tax Reduction

c. Discretionary Housing Payments

d. Disabled Facilities Grants (England and Wales only)

(Please answer YES/NO)

2. Does the Local Authority disregard all payments made under the War Pension scheme, as income, when assessing eligibility for:

a. Housing Benefit

b. Council Tax Support/Council Tax Reduction

c. Discretionary Housing Payments

d. Disabled Facilities Grants (England and Wales only)

(Please answer YES/NO)

3. Does the Local Authority disregard a Service Invaliding Pension or Service Attributable Pension, paid under the Armed Forces Pension Scheme, as income, when assessing eligibility for:

a. Housing Benefit

b. Council Tax Support/Council Tax Reduction

c. Discretionary Housing Payments

d. Disabled Facilities Grants (England and Wales only)

(Please answer YES/NO)

Response

Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding.

1a. Yes.

1b. Yes.

1c. Depends on the circumstances of each case.

1d. Please see below.

2a. Yes.

2b. Yes.

2c. Depends on the circumstances of each case.

2d. Please see below.

3a. Service Attributable Pension - Yes, Service Invaliding Pension - No.

3b. Service Attributable Pension - Yes, Service Invaliding Pension - No.

3c. Service Attributable Pension - Yes, Service Invaliding Pension - depends on the circumstances of each case.

3d. Please see below.

Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction both have provision for 'local schemes' whereby housing authorities can choose to ignore all War Pension or Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) payments as income.

DFG is administered under the 1996 Housing Renewal Grant regulations (as amended). There is no provision for 'local schemes' in these regulations, which provide in detail for how War Pensions and AFCS payments are to be treated.

The situation around war pensions is complex - it is set out in detail here:

https://www.ferret.co.uk/support/faqs/?faq=housing\faq-housing-09.aspx&c=housinggrants#faq

In terms of AFCS, we have 2 specific provisions:

Regulation 13(g) provides that only the first £10 per week of a guaranteed income payment made under article 14(1)(b) or article 21(1)(a) of the Armed Forces and Reserve Forces (Compensation Scheme) Order 2005 is disregarded and the rest is taken into account as income.

However, there is a further provision in Schedule 3, para 50(b) that we should wholly disregard:

Any guaranteed income payment payable under the Armed Forces and Reserve Forces (Compensation Scheme) Order 2005 where the guaranteed income payment relates to an injury that falls within any of levels 1 to 6 of the tariff set out in any of Tables 1 to 9 in Schedule 4 to that Order.

Our understanding is that payments of levels 1 to 6 are for the most severely disabled and so the effect is that those are ignored in full, whilst AFCS payments to those less disabled only receive the £10 disregard.

It is not AFCS guaranteed income payments that are analogous to DLA/PIP but the Armed Forces Independence Payment. This should be treated as high rate DLA care and mobility for premium purposes and is wholly ignored as income.

We understand that Service Invaliding Pension or Service Attributable Pension, paid under the Armed Forces Pension Scheme are occupational pension entitlements and therefore income in full, they are not AFCS guaranteed income payments.