To those who have been following recent posts about this issue, you may be interested to know that a colleague told me today about a reference she read in regard to the forthcoming changes in the regulations previously mentioned in A31.

This deals with section 68 and changes of address within the LA area. It is in the June 2005 issue of Housing Benefit Direct and reads:

"In the March issue of HB Direct, we mentioned that we were working on our proposals to change HB regulations 68, 69
and 70 to deal with the problems with changes of address which emerged after the abolition of benefit periods. These
proposals were agreed with the DWP/LAA Practitioners Operational Group and are
• to have a general rule that a change of circumstance is effective from the first day of the benefit week immediately
following the date of the change, this would be in line with the existing general rule in reg 68(1), but
• if the change is to the rent or the address, but within the LA’s area, the effective date should be the date the changeactually happens, this will mean more part week payments....
• We are working with lawyers on the amendments to the regulations and will be consulting your associations formally on
the proposed changes. Our plans at present are to lay the amending regulations in October this year to provide for a start
date of April 2006 for the new rules.

Regards

Vanessa T