Housing Benefit Award Calculations and The General Teaching Council for Scotland Annual Professional Fee - Freedom of information requests
Title or Description
Housing Benefit Award Calculations and The General Teaching Council for Scotland Annual Professional Fee
FOI Number
15409
Date Received
10/07/2021
Type of Request
FOI
Request or Question
FoI Housing Benefit Award Calculations ( Section 35 2 b) and The General Teaching Council for Scotland Annual Professional Fee Subject: Freedom of Information Request: Housing Benefit Award /Calculations ( Section 35 2 b) and General Teaching Council for Scotland Annual Professional Fee £65.
I need to know how your Housing Benefit Team interprets, under Section 35 2 (b) of the Housing Benefits Regulations the Legal requirement for a Teacher to pay The General Teaching Council for Scotland ( GTC) Teachers Professional Fee of £65 annually. NB the GTC Professional fee IS NOT a Union subscription, but an annual Professional Fee which MUST BE paid to teach in Scotland. Housing Benefit Regulation Section 35 2 (b) states: "Any payment in respect of expenses wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred in the performance of the duties of the employment"
Qu 1:Do you as a Council Housing Benefits Team take the General Teaching Council for Scotland Professional Teachers Annual fee into consideration by deducting the amount (£65.00) as expense which is "wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred" ( under Housing Benefit Regulation Section 35 2
b) when calculating the claimants earnings for that particular award period when the Fees are taken from a claimants salary?
OR
Qu 2:Do you as a Council Housing Benefits Team ignore "necessarily incurred expenses" for example, the General Teaching Council for Scotland Professional Fees (therefore ignoring Housing Benefit Regulations Section 35 2
b ) when assessing a claimants earnings for the salary period that the Professional fees are paid in?
E
Response
I can confirm that we do not hold any additional information regarding professional fees when calculating net income for Housing Benefit purposes. Our Benefit Assessors would refer to the legislation you have referred to in your request when deciding how to treat this annual expense. As this information is not held we therefore give notice under Section 17 (1) (b) of the Freedom of Information Act 2002
.
However, I have discussed your request with one of our Financial Inclusion Officers and they have advised that we would deduct the £65 from gross earnings for the month it was paid as it would fall under section 35(2)(b).
