Regular payments
Regular payments are taken into account as income if they are intended, and used, for food, ordinary clothing or footwear, household fuel, rent met by HB, housing costs met by IS, JSA or ESA
, council tax or water charges.
1IS Reg 66B IS Regs
JSA Reg 136A JSA Regs
ESA Regs 2(1) and 138 ESA Regs
HB Regs 2(1) and 68(3) and (4) HB Regs Up to £20 a week is disregarded. You cannot get the £20 disregard in full as well as the full disregards available on a student loan, widowed parent’s allowance or war pensions (see
here). If you get one of these other payments in addition to a hardship payment, your maximum weekly disregard is £20. For example, if you have a student loan and receive a war pension, £10 a week is disregarded from each. If you also receive regular payments from a hardship fund, these count in full as you have already used up your £20 disregard.
Regular payments intended and used for anything else, such as childcare expenses, are completely disregarded.
Regular payments from the 16–19 bursary fund should be disregarded regardless of their purpose, but colleges and other providers have also been given guidance to ensure that any regular payments from the fund are clearly identified as being for course costs, and so disregarded.