{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/social-security-miscellaneous-amendments-no-4-regulations-2009/note",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/social-security-miscellaneous-amendments-no-4-regulations-2009/note.json",
  "legislation": "uksi/2009/2655",
  "legislation_title": "The Social Security (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 4) Regulations 2009",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/social-security-miscellaneous-amendments-no-4-regulations-2009",
  "path": "note",
  "kind": "note",
  "number": null,
  "heading": "Explanatory note",
  "text": "(This note is not part of the Regulations)\nThese Regulations amend a number of different regulations relating to social security.\nRegulation 2 amends the Income Support (General) Regulations 1987 (S.I. 1987/1967) (“the Income Support Regulations”) to:\nremove reference to the Adult Learning Option scheme which ceased in September 2008,\nremove an unnecessary category from the definition of who is a “chronically sick or mentally disabled” person for the purposes of determining the circumstances in which persons in relevant education may be entitled to income support, as the category is already covered by provisions elsewhere within the definition,\ncorrect minor drafting errors in relation to provisions concerning persons under 21 with no parent, or living away from their parents, undertaking full-time, non-advanced education, and\nadd single claimants and lone parents with whom a child is placed for adoption by an adoption agency to the list of prescribed categories of persons for the purposes of entitlement to income support.\nRegulations 2, 4, 6, 8 and 11 amend the Income Support Regulations, the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations 1996 (S.I. 1996/207) (“the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations”), the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 (S.I. 2006/213) (“the Housing Benefit Regulations”), the Council Tax Benefit Regulations 2006 (S.I. 2006/215) (“the Council Tax Benefit Regulations”) and the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations 2008 (S.I. 2008/794) (“the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations”) to reinstate relevant references to the Children Acts 1975 and 1989 that were removed by previous legislation.\nRegulations 2, 4 and 11 amend the Income Support Regulations, the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations and the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations to:\nprovide for a full disregard for child maintenance payments when calculating income for benefits purposes, and align the treatment of capital derived from child maintenance payments with the usual capital rules for income related benefits,\ninclude cross references to provisions explaining the periods over which working tax credit income is taken into account,\namend the definition of “access funds” to remove an obsolete reference to section 7 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, and\nclarify that retainers in the form of statutory guarantee payments and payments where someone is suspended on medical or maternity grounds should continue to be taken into account as earnings.\nRegulations 2, 4 to 9 and 11 amend the Income Support Regulations, the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations, the State Pension Credit Regulations 2002 (S.I. 2002/1792) (the “State Pension Credit Regulations”), the Housing Benefit Regulations, the Housing Benefit (Persons who have attained the qualifying age for state pension credit) Regulations 2006 (S.I. 2006/214) (“the Housing Benefit (SPC) Regulations”), the Council Tax Benefit Regulations, the Council Tax Benefit (Persons who have attained the qualifying age for state pension credit) Regulations 2006 (S.I. 2006/216) (“the Council Tax Benefit (SPC) Regulations”) and the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations to:\nintroduce a disregard for any expenses arising out of a claimant’s involvement with a service user group, and will also remove that group from the ambit of the notional income rules.\nprovide that up to £10 of a payment under the Ministry of Defence’s Early Departure Payments Scheme may be disregarded when considering income for benefit purposes.\nRegulations 2 and 11 amend the Income Support Regulations and the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations to provide for a cross reference within the housing costs provisions to the definition of “period of study” contained within those respective regulations, to align the treatment of income support and employment and support allowance claimants with jobseekers allowance claimants.\nRegulation 3 amends the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1987 (S.I. 1987/1968) so that in each case the time limit for correcting a defective claim for benefit starts from the date the claimant is first advised of the defect, rather than the date the claimant was last advised of the defect. The effect is that the time limit (which is one month, or such longer period as the Secretary of State considers reasonable) will not be automatically extended by the issue of subsequent reminders.\nRegulation 4 amends the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations to align the treatment of:\nyoung persons discharged from detention and who are estranged from their parents, with other provisions in the Regulations, and\njobseeker’s allowance claimants, with the treatment of income support and employment and support allowance claimants in respect of payments made by third parties, where the claimant or their partner lives in a care home, an Abbeyfield Home or an independent hospital, by disregarding payments made in respect of that person’s care by a health authority or local authority.\nRegulations 6 and 8 amend the Housing Benefit Regulations and the Council Tax Benefit Regulations to align them with other income related benefits in respect of the disregard for income from child maintenance payments, by widening the category of third parties whose child maintenance payments will be disregarded as income for benefit calculation purposes.\nRegulations 6 to 10 amend the Housing Benefit Regulations, the Housing Benefit (SPC) Regulations, the Council Tax Benefit Regulations, the Council Tax Benefit (SPC) Regulations and the Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit (War Pension Disregards) Regulations 2007 (S.I. 2007/1619) to update references in respect of, and to remove unnecessary references to, pensions being payable to war widower’s and the surviving partner of a civil partnership.\nRegulation 11 amends the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations to:\nprovide a definition for the qualifying age for state pension credit to align the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations with other income related benefits,\namend a small drafting error in relation to when it will be considered reasonable not to have attended a work-focused interview,\nremove the requirement for an employment and support allowance claimant to seek the Secretary of State’s permission before travelling abroad for medical treatment for a short period without this affecting their employment and support allowance eligibility, and\nclarify a provision in Part 1 (prescribed amounts) of Schedule 4 (amounts).\nRegulations 12 and 13 correct minor drafting errors in the Social Fund (Applications and Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 2008 (S.I. 2008/2265) and the Social Security (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 6) Regulations 2008 (S.I. 2008/2767).\nA full impact assessment has not been published for this instrument as it has no impact on private and voluntary sectors.",
  "extent": null,
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2009/2655/note",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-10-29T03:05:05.577804+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}