Exclude Child Benefit, Social Fund payments and dependant income from Housing Benefit #2210

Summary

Approved plan A4 removes three incorrect inclusions from the ordinary Housing Benefit income assessment: Child Benefit, Sure Start Maternity Grants (Social Fund), and dependent children's own income. Count only claimant/partner personal income, retaining existing passports and Savings Credit-only treatment. Three files, no new inputs, no changes to tax credits, capital mappings or other programs. Claimant, partner and dependant income/capital (Regulation 25, especially paragraph (3): dependent-child income and capital excluded); Child Benefit income exclusion (Schedule 5 paragraph 65: any Child Benefit payment); Social Fund income exclusion (Schedule 5 paragraph 31: any Social Fund payment); Pension-age Housing Benefit income assessment (Regulation 29: pension-age tariff, chargeable income and exclusions)

Audited model surface

• Audited release: policyengine-uk 2.106.1
• Audit unit: variable:housing_benefit_applicable_income
• Last model modification: 2026-09-30
• Explicitly reviewed units:
  • variable:housing_benefit_applicable_income — last model modification: 2026-09-30
• Audit date: 2026-10-09
• Periods reviewed: Current ordinary Housing Benefit income rules
• Jurisdictions: Great Britain; matching Northern Ireland exclusions to be cited

Findings and implementation parts

1. The ordinary assessment currently includes benefits and dependent-child income that the rules exclude.

Sources: Claimant, partner and dependant income/capital (Regulation 25, especially paragraph (3): dependent-child income and capital excluded); Child Benefit income exclusion (Schedule 5 paragraph 65: any Child Benefit payment); Social Fund income exclusion (Schedule 5 paragraph 31: any Social Fund payment); Pension-age Housing Benefit income assessment (Regulation 29: pension-age tariff, chargeable income and exclusions)

• Remove child_benefit and ssmg from income sources and restrict the personal-income mask to claimant and partner. Preserve existing passport and Savings Credit-only paths, add precise positive/negative regression cases and a changelog. Coordinate the separate scoped-award Count only the claimant's and partner's legacy awards in means tests and passports #2027 and capital-income Treat income derived from capital as capital in the legacy means tests #1995 changes, without reproducing them. Extract the unchanged pre-deduction income calculation into a pure helper in this same formula file, so approved B2 can apply each dated disregard before the income floor without duplicating source lists or modifying stored inputs. No additional policy or file. Claimant, partner and dependant income/capital (Regulation 25, especially paragraph (3): dependent-child income and capital excluded); Child Benefit income exclusion (Schedule 5 paragraph 65: any Child Benefit payment); Social Fund income exclusion (Schedule 5 paragraph 31: any Social Fund payment); Pension-age Housing Benefit income assessment (Regulation 29: pension-age tariff, chargeable income and exclusions)
  • Add or update reference at policyengine_uk/variables/gov/dwp/housing_benefit/applicable_income/housing_benefit_applicable_income.py → reference and formula income-source lists/member mask using Claimant, partner and dependant income/capital (Regulation 25, especially paragraph (3): dependent-child income and capital excluded); Child Benefit income exclusion (Schedule 5 paragraph 65: any Child Benefit payment); Social Fund income exclusion (Schedule 5 paragraph 31: any Social Fund payment); Pension-age Housing Benefit income assessment (Regulation 29: pension-age tariff, chargeable income and exclusions).

Uncertainties and exclusions

Only these three evidenced exclusions; not full income-rule completeness. No new inputs, blanket statutory-pay rewrite, reform to Pension Credit or data attribution changes. Existing #2027/#1995 must preserve these exclusions when rebasing.