Can anyone help me find information about IS in residential college? I'm sure I remember seeing a Commissioner's decision about it but I can't find it now.

My client is 19 years old. For the last two years he has been at residential college Monday to Friday, and at home at weekends. He receives DLA and has just started to receive IB. His DLA care component is payable when he is at home and he has been told by our local Jobcentre Plus that he may only receive Income Support when he is at home. They haven't yet given a reason for this decision.

I'm sure that I saw something about a decision that might help me with this. The decision was concerned about whether the payments made by the Local Authority and/or the Learning and Skills Council to fund a residential college placement should be treated as payments 'in kind', and therefore to be treated as notional income.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Assuming he is in full time non advanced education and under 20 he is in a group that could claim IS because he is on DLA. His applicable amount would be £72.10. If he has only just started to get IB this would be £61.35, giving IS entitlement of £10.75. I don't see the relevance of the LA payments. They could only be for education or res care so how could they affect IS?

Afterthought....I was posting the earlier reply while waiting for DWP to answer the phone and not really concentrating! If the school was a res care home, the DP would not be applied when the DLA was not in payment, so there would be no IS entitlement during the week, but there would be at weekends. Unless the youngster was getting the DP through DLA mob, or had been incapable of work for a year and getting the DP that way. If the youngster is not on DLA mob, could he get backdated proof of incapacity to satisfy the year for the DP? The 20 year old age limit I mentioned is not really relevant because after that he could claim IS as incapable of work. For this purpose he would not be treated as in education over 21 hrs/wk because any hours specifically designed for people with disabilities are ignored.

I'm getting too old to do more than one thing at a time.

Thanks for your responses. I'm clear about the entitlement to Incapacity Benefit (he is in 'special' education) and disability premium (he gets DLA mobility component). My problem is really around the treatment of Local Authority funding as payments in kind, which are then used as notional income.

I read somewhere, about a year ago, that there was a decision which stated that Social Services payments should not be treated as payments in kind and should only be taken into account if money is actually paid to the student.

Ring any bells?

Payments in kind - there was a case that went to the commissioners about a student bursary that was paid direct to the college rather than to the student. The commissioners decision reinterpreted the meaning of "payment in kind".
The DWP didn't like this so in October 2005 reg were were amended to make sure "disregard" of "income in kind" does not did not include payments made to to third parties in respect of the claimant. So income to third parties are to be treated as possessed by the claimant. Does that help?