Hi all,

Does anyone know the answer to the following:
Where a rent officer determines a rent for a board & attendance case, where the cost of provision of breakfast is higher than the standard deduction (£2.80 after April, I believe), would the difference be paid as an eligible charge by the local authority in addition to the rent determined by the rent officer?

Thanks in advance,
Kris,

I used to work on these cases many years ago, and I could never understand the rent officers determinations of the cost of the breakfast, but its inevitably higher than the standard deduction.

Think about it, a breakfast means a prepared meal. Even a so called continental breakfast will cost more then 40p per day. You cant get a cup of tea in the worst possible dive for 40p, let alone a breakfast.

The eligible rent in a B&B case must be at least the overall rent (including breaskfast) as determined by the rent officer, less the standard deduction

The Council is however free to restrict under Reg 12(7) if it considers that the it is unreasonable to meet it by way of HB.

I don't think that there is any power to restrict on general grounds since the regulations say clearly what the deduction for meals should be, with no discretion either way. I don't think using the general powers to restrict under reg 12 could be justified since the charge is unlikely to be unreasonable- the rent officer has set it.

The reasoning behind the set charges for meals is that years ago board and lodging charge were met by IS and not HB. There was a standard amount for meals of £2.50 per meal not included in the charge (a little less for breakfast). This was in the mid 1980s but even then these values were somewhat out of date.

The government wanted to move boarders over to HB but campaigners pointed out that this meant that, if the meals deduction was even anything like the standard amounts for meals it would take up a huge amount of the IS standard personal allowance and that in the case of under 25s, would actually be more than the standard allowance.

The government therefore withdrew its proposals for a couple of years, but then came back with the standard deductions which we still have. Hopefully board and lodging is still affordable for young people.

I was thinking of the situation where someone lives more or less permanently in a B&B . The LA may well say that living in a B&B at high cost is unreasonable and (if single) the claimant should look for a room or a one bed flat.

If the overall cost of accommodation with board (after the standard deductions for meals) is in line with what would be paid for say a one bed flat, there is no problem