My Department does not hold information on the number of housing authorities which include or disregard family income supplement payments in their differential rent schemes.
The making and amending of rent schemes is the responsibility of local authorities as an integral part of their housing management functions, subject to broad principles laid down by my Department in Circular letter HRT 3/2002 of 6 March 2002. It is a matter for local authorities, when assessing individual households, to consider whether rents payable are in accordance with the authority's rent scheme. Therefore, decisions on whether or not to disregard either a proportion of income or particular sources of income for the purposes of calculating rents are matters for each individual local authority to consider in accordance with their own rent scheme.
Notwithstanding this, in the context of new provisions provided for by the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009, I intend to make regulations later this year which will more clearly set out the matters that may be included in a local rents scheme.