7. Other benefits and tax credits

Income support (IS) tops up other income you have to the level of your basic requirements (your ‘applicable amount’). Most other benefits you get are therefore taken into account as income when working out your IS. This means they reduce your IS pound for pound. Disability living allowance, personal independence payment and housing benefit (HB) are, however, always disregarded as income.

If you have children and get child tax credit (CTC), both CTC and child benefit are disregarded as income for IS.

Getting another benefit may reduce your IS, but might also mean you qualify for a premium with your IS (eg, getting carer’s allowance means you qualify for a carer premium), so you could be better off overall (although in this case, the person you care for could get less benefit – see here).

If you get IS and you pay rent, you are eligible as a student for HB (unless you are a care leaver aged 16 or 17).

IS is taken into account when calculating whether the benefit cap applies (see here and here).

Passported benefits

Provided you meet any other conditions, getting IS entitles you to:

•free dental treatment;
•vouchers for glasses;
•a Best Start grant;
•Best Start foods;
•funeral support payments;
•a budgeting loan;
•free school lunches from your local authority.

See Chapters 5 and 14 for details.

You may also be eligible for a school clothing grant - see mygov.scot/clothing-grants.