Local Government and Communities Committee, 19 Sep 2007
Meeting date: Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Official Report
181KB pdf
Subordinate Legislation
Housing Grants (Assessment of Contributions) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2007 (Draft)
Good morning and welcome to the Local Government and Communities Committee. The first item on the agenda is subordinate legislation. The Minister for Communities and Sport, Stewart Maxwell, is accompanied by Jean Waddie, who is a policy officer in the private housing policy team.
The Housing Grants (Assessment of Contributions) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2007 have been laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that the Parliament must approve them before their provisions come into force. The Subordinate Legislation Committee has raised no points on the regulations for this committee's attention.
As committee members do not want to take the opportunity to ask technical questions, we will move to the debate.
The amendment regulations make a technical change to the means test that applies when a local authority offers a grant to a home owner to repair, improve or adapt their home.
The amount of grant that is awarded depends on the applicant's relevant income. The detail of what types of income are relevant is set out in the original Housing Grants (Assessment of Contributions) (Scotland) Regulations 2003. All income from social security benefits is disregarded in calculating an applicant's income, as is income from various funds and trusts set up by the United Kingdom Government to help people who are affected by particular conditions or disabilities. That includes payments from the independent living funds, which help disabled people to live in the community.
From 1 October 2007, a new fund will be established under the Welfare Reform Act 2007. It will be known as the independent living fund 2006. We need to amend the housing grants regulations to include that new fund to ensure that people who receive payments from the new fund will benefit from the same disregard as those receiving payments from previous generations of the independent living fund.
Members of the committee will be aware that the housing grants regime that is set out in the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 is to be replaced by provisions in the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006. The Scottish Government is currently working on the implementation of the new scheme. The amendment that is implemented by the regulations that are before you is simply to ensure that the legislation remains up to date in the meantime. Therefore, I ask you to recommend that the regulations be approved.
I move,
That the Local Government and Communities Committee recommends that the draft Housing Grants (Assessment of Contributions) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2007 be approved.
Motion agreed to.