https://www.slab.org.uk/guidance/how-we-calculate-income/
https://www.slab.org.uk/guidance/how-we-calculate-income/
Paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Children’s Legal Assistance (Scotland) Regulations 2013 states that your client’s income is taken to be the income they may reasonably expect to receive (in cash or in kind) during the period of computation.
See below for examples of the most common types of income and how we treat them.
The best evidence of your client’s income is a wage slip for the month preceding the application.
However, if your client has only recently started employment we can accept other evidence including:
Your client may have more than one type of income or capital. Where this applies, we need to see verification of each income or capital source.
We cannot to accept a bank statement showing net pay received as the only allowable deductions from pay in children’s legal aid are:
Your client may also have other significant deductions made at source which may be for commitments not allowable when determining disposable income.
We use information from the latest set of accounts about the net profit your client has made.
We make the following adjustments to the net profit:
We require to see loan agreements and hire purchase contracts if your client is self- employed as most accounts only show interest paid on hire purchase, not the principal repayment. It will speed up processing the application if this information is sent to us along with the accounts.
If your client is newly self-employed and does not have a full year’s record, we can accept the figure your client draws each week or month from the business. We will ask for bank statements to support these figures in the absence of accounts.
If your client does not have accounts made up we will accept a copy of the information made available to HM Revenue & Customs and the tax assessment based on it.
No further assessment of financial eligibility, either income or capital, is required where your client, their spouse or partner receive one of the following state benefits:
We will, in the first instance, try to verify the payment of a passported benefit directly with the DWP. If we are unable to do so, your client may need to provide documentary evidence confirming that a passported benefit is in payment.
In terms of the 2013 regulations we are authorised to disregard payments of:
These will be left out of account in our assessment. Although Schedule 1 does not specifically state that Pension Credits should be disregarded we will make a discretionary allowance to the value of Pension Credit payments which will also therefore be left out of account in our assessment.
All other state benefits will be converted to a monthly figure and included. This is done by multiplying the weekly benefit rate by 52 and dividing by twelve. Some benefits are paid 4 weekly and so the figure paid does not represent the monthly entitlement. In such cases, the figure is adjusted by multiplying by 13 and dividing by twelve.
Pension
We will include all pension payments due whether state or work related.
Housekeeping
We will include payments made by partners for housekeeping only if your client and partner are living together but regard themselves as separated or where there is a contrary interest between them in the case.
Otherwise, we will aggregate the partner’s resources with your clients and ignore the sums they exchange as housekeeping payments.
Maintenance
This includes all alimentary and similar payments your client receives including those made through the Child Maintenance Service.
We only take into account payments received and not payments which have been ordered or agreed but are not being paid.
Voluntary maintenance is taken fully into account.
Child Maintenance Service
The annual figure for payments made to your client through the CMS is included.
Student grants and bursaries
We include any grant or bursary your client will receive but not any student loan they could get.
Rent or mortgage
We make an allowance for the rent paid by your client, net of any housing benefit to which they are entitled in the month preceding the application.
If your client owns their house, we allow the monthly mortgage paid, including the premium payable for any related life assurance policies.
Council tax
We allow the monthly figure for council tax payable, subject to any reductions or council tax benefit applicable.
Allowances for partners
If your client is living with a partner, a statutory allowance is made to cover their dependency on your client. This figure is set by the Scottish Parliament and is uprated annually. This is usually the only allowance we can make unless the partner has a disability requiring extra expenditure from the joint income. The current statutory allowance can be found in the children’s keycard.
If your client has part-time care of a child, we apply a pro rata reduction to the statutory allowance.
Maintenance
We make an allowance for maintenance payments to a separated spouse, partner or children, whether under a court order or voluntarily, and for payment of a maintenance assessment by the CSA.
Child care
An allowance can be made for the cost of child care paid during the month preceding the application being made, provided your client is employed. This includes any after school club charges in the case of a school age child.
Debts
An allowance can be made for payments towards debts shown to be made during the month before the application.
This could be for:
We would not include debts of utilities or mobile telephone costs.
This is not a definitive list of all potential deductions and we may consider taking into account other debt payments.