'Someone mentioned claim forms. Child maintenance and liable relative payments should be distinguishable on a claim form because they were treated differently anyway'
I don't know what you mean by 'liable relative payments' but the issue of the claim form is relevant. Previously if a claimant received payments from their ex-partner and they had children, there was a £15 disregard regardless of whether the payments were for the children or for the partner.
Now the payments are only totally disregarded if they are for the children - if they are for the partner (and the partner has children), it is still subject to the £15 disregard. If a Local Authority is still using old claim forms which just ask about maintenance (which would have been entirely accpetable under the old rules), they may now need to ask as to whether those payments are solely for the children or whether they contain an element of spousal maintenance.
When the new rules came we wrote to all our claimants in receipt of maintenance to establish who the payments were for because we had never previously needed this information...
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