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December 2001

Bulletin for Contact Officers December 2001

Dear contact officer

We felt it was not only time to wish you all a Merry Christmas, but also to advise you about future planned newsletters and keep you up to date with the review of the ILF which has been taking place this year.

Future newsletters

The next full newsletter is due to be sent out in January 2002. This is to coincide with the outcome of the published ‘Quinquennial Review’ of the ILF. Previous readers will be aware that this review has been undertaken by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP – previously DSS) as this is the ILFs sponsoring department.

We are aware that you will not have received a newsletter for quite some time - initially we had been expecting the outcome of the review to be published after the summer – but we have now decided that newsletters should be published on a quarterly basis.

We have also decided that the timing of these newsletters will coincide so that the Quarterly Analysis of the ILFs client base will be up to date (January, April, July, October of each year).

Announcement in parliament

Some of you may be aware that on 28 November 2001, the Secretary of State announced some changes to the financial assessment used by the ILF for the future. These changes, due to take effect from April 2002, can be summarised as follows:

· The earnings of a client and of their partner will be totally disregarded in the financial assessment.

· The capital limit will be £18,500 and tariff income, assessed as now, will be assumed for amounts between £11,500 and £18,500. This will apply to the joint capital owned by an applicant and their partner.

The management and staff of the ILF will spend the next few months ensuring that the implementation of these changes will take place smoothly, with as little disruption to clients as possible.

Quinquennial Review

It is expected that there may be other changes to ILF policy as a result of the Quinquennial Review, but these will not be known until the final report has been published.

The final report is expected to be published before the end of the calendar year, and copies can then be obtained from the House of Commons Library, which can be accessed on the House of Commons website. The ILF will, however, give all Contact Officers a full update of the review in the next newsletter (January) or as soon as possible.

Information about the review

If you have any queries about the announcement so far, we would be most grateful if you could direct these to our Customer Services section rather than our operational staff, who are currently busy dealing with ongoing applications.

Please be aware, however, that we are unable to comment about any other changes that may be announced in the future until they have actually been announced.

On behalf of all the Customer Services staff, please have a merry festive season, and a happy new year.