§ Mr. AshleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if payments from the Independent Living Fund will be disregarded when disabled people are being assessed for means-tested benefits.
§ Mr. ScottI refer the right hon. Member to my reply to the hon. Member for Derby South, (Mrs. Beckett) on 12 April at columns102–3.
§ Mr. AshleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) how many applications to the Independent Living Fund have been received; and what arrangements there are to make grants to those people who fulfil the eligibility criteria;
(2) how the assessment of applicants to the Independent Living Fund is to be undertaken, and by whom.
§ Mr. ScottThe arrangements for assessing and making payments from the Independent Living Fund will be a matter for the trustees to decide when the fund is formally established. By the end of last week we had received eight completed application forms. A further 30 application forms had been sent out as a result of inquiries to the fund about specific individuals.
As an interim measure, officials, guided by professional advice, are making inquiries and carrying out assessments so that when the trust is formally established decisions can be taken swiftly. We shall look sympathetically at individual cases and, where appropriate, officials will arrange for payments in advance of the fund itself coming into operation.
§ Mr. AshleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what stage negotiations to register the Independent Living Fund as a charity have reached.
§ Mr. ScottCounsel is making the final adjustments to the draft trust deed which we shall then put to the charity commissioners for urgent consideration.
§ Mr. AshleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will outline the review procedure for applicants turned down by the Independent Living Fund.
§ Mr. ScottI refer the right hon. Member to my reply to the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) on 12 April at column 12.
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§ Mr. AshleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services when the trustees of the Independent Living Fund are to be appointed; why they have not yet been appointed; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. ScottThe Independent Living Fund's trust deed will provide that there will be up to 10 trustees of whom five may be appointed by the Secretary of State and five by the Disablement Income Group. I will announce the names when the fund is ready to be formally established.
§ Mr. AshleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services whether legislation will be introduced to disregard payments from the Independent Living Fund for the purposes of assessing housing benefit.
§ Mr. ScottWe plan to do so as soon as possible. The eligibility criteria for the fund, which I announced on 31 March in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Mr. Alexander) at columns659–60, contain a provision for the fund to make good any housing benefit reductions arising from payments by the fund, once the planned change to housing benefit legislation has taken effect.
§ Mr. AshleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Services what statistical basis was used by his Department when assessing the potential number of applicants to the Independent Living Fund.
§ Mr. ScottThe February 1986 sample of supplementary benefit cases indicated that there were some 250 people of all ages receiving domestic additions of more than £20 a week. However the sample for this group was very small, thus the figure has been taken only as a broad indication that the number of successful claims is likely to be counted in hundreds rather than thousands.