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How many people under 25 years of age claim the rental component of Income Support

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WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SECURITY BY DEPUTY G.P. SOUTHERN OF ST. HELIER

ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 25th MAY 2010

Question

"Will the Minister inform members how many persons aged under 25 are claiming the rental component of Income Support?

Will the Minister explain under what circumstances under 25's are eligible for this component?

Will he further inform members how the current rules for eligibility are working in terms of alleviating hardship amongst under 25's in Jersey's expensive rental market?"

Answer

Income Support (IS) is providing assistance with the cost of accommodation to a total of 378 individuals under the age of 25 (as at 10 May 2010).

The circumstances in which an individual under 25 is eligible for the rental component were set out in the departmental response (P.90/2007 Amd(2) Com) to a number of amendments proposed by the Scrutiny Panel to the Income Support regulations in October 2007. For ease of reference the relevant extract is reproduced below:

"8. P a ge 51, Schedule 1, Paragraph 3 – Housing Component

T h e d raft copy of policy guidelines issued to the Sub-Panel on 10th August included the following (in the

current version this is section  7.3.1).

" T h e main rule to be able to claim a housing component is that the claimant is aged at least 25 and is the tenant, licensee or owner of the property in which the IS Unit lives.

T h e re are some exceptions to the age limit of 25:-

  • A claimant who has responsibility for a child. This can be the parent of the child or someone else (example an elder brother or sister) that has the main responsibility for the child
  • A y oung person referred by Social Services as needing to live away from the family home (e.g. someone leaving care or being removed from an abusive family situation)
  • A y oung person that cannot be expected to return to their previous family home because either

T heir parents (or the person that had previously looked after them) are unable to help them – for

example: the individual is an orphan, their parents are in prison or occupying unsuitable accommodation or

T h e young person has been living independently for at least one year and had reasonable prospects of

remaining independent – the reason for claiming Income Support is an unexpected change in circumstance (illness, unexpected redundancy etc)".

H a v i ng taken advice, it is noted that these Regulations would meet the requirements of the Human Rights

(Jersey) Law 2000."

For individuals under the age of 25 who do not have the option of living with their parents this support works very well.