Home » Forums Keywords » Benefits » Other Benefits. » Housing Benefit (HB), Local Housing Allowance (LHA), Council Tax Benefit (CTB) & Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI)

Integration of a claim for ESA and Housing/Council Tax Benefit

  • Post reply
No replies
Tue, 06/10/2009 - 10:03am
John
John's picture
Offline
Last seen: 21 hours 32 min ago
Joined: 09/03/2008

 Previously when a new claimant for ESA needed to claim Housing/Council tax benefit they would have to complete a form HCTB1 applying for the Housing/Council Tax Benefit.

The Jobcentre Plus now has a new process that will allow for new ESA claimants to simultaneously claim Housing/Council Tax benefit at the same time.

From the ESA Operational Guidance v5.1e 

"2. The Scope of the CAM based ESA gather (26/10/09 onwards) 

2.1 From October 2009 a new Jobcentre Plus process will result in ESA customers, who indicate they wish to make a new claim to HB and/or CTB, being offered the opportunity to claim both sets of benefits simultaneously. This single integrated information gather for multiple benefits supports government policy to promote benefit take-up. 


2.2 The scope of the gather completed via the CAM system is similar to that delivered by CMS for existing Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) Income Support (IS) and IB customers. A full gather of all HB/CTB information will be offered to the customer if they indicate they are interested in making a new claim to HB and/or CTB. 


2.3 The full gather applies regardless of the ESA sub-type they claim. A customer indicating that they wish to claim ESA (Income Related) would naturally undergo a full means tested gather but also specific additional questions that apply solely to the HB/CTB aspect of the claim. Equally a customer claiming ESA Contributory Only (C) who indicates they also would like to claim HB and/or CTB will also undergo a full means tested gather including HB/CTB specific questions even though this is not required for the primary benefit gather. For example an ESA (C) only customer simultaneously claiming HB and/or CTB will be asked income details and complete a full gather of partner details (if applicable). 


2.4 This full gather principle applies only to information and does not extend to evidence. Therefore in the example quoted above although details on the partner circumstances are collected evidence will not be requested to support this. It will be the responsibility of the Local Authority to gather this information. 


2.5 The full gather principle applies to new and repeat claims to ESA only. If the customer has contacted Jobcentre Plus to report a change of circumstances the integrated gather process will not be applied, customers will be advised to contact their LA direct with this information. "

 

 

You may also be interested in HB/CTB G16/2009 the "Housing Benefit and Council Tax General Information Bulletin" - Click here.

Top

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
X
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Loading