Minimum income guarantee

The minimum income guarantee is an amount of your income that we don’t count when working out your contribution. It covers normal day-to-day living costs, such as for food, utility bills (gas, electricity and so on), clothing and personal spending.

The guarantee for 2023 to 2024 is:
• at least £214.35 a week for people of pension age; and
• at least £103.65 for people of working age.

Capital and savings

Capital includes, but is not limited to, any savings you have in:

• bank or building society accounts
• National Savings bank accounts
• Post Office accounts
• ISA accounts
• Save As You Earn (SAYE) schemes
• cash
• Premium Bonds or National Savings Certificates
• stocks, shares and trust funds and
• bonds.

Income

Income includes:

• most state benefits
• income from annuities
• occupational pensions
• private pensions
• refunds of income tax and
• income from a trust.

Property-related household expenses

We take account of these expenses when working out your disposable income, if you have to pay these expenses by law. They include:

• Council Tax, minus Council Tax Benefit 
• rent, minus Housing Benefit or Local Housing Allowance
• mortgage payments, unless they are paid through the
  Government’s Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) scheme 
• secured loan repayments for repairs or improvements to your home
• hire-purchase agreements to buy your home, for example, if you live in a caravan
• insurance payments relating to your home
• ground rent 
• service charge payments that are not covered by Income Support or Pension Credit and
• water rates or metered costs of water and waste water.

Disability-related expenses

Disability-related expenses are the extra costs you may have as a result of your disability or medical condition. We may take into account any reasonable costs of extra help or support you need to be able to live independently. We will usually only consider these if there is no alternative that would cost less, and the cost of this support is not already included within your personal budget. We will only consider these costs if they are higher than those a person without a medical condition would reasonably be expected to pay.

The following list shows the sorts of items that we may be able to include as disability- related expenses. You can also check with your benefits adviser if you feel that we should take account of other expenses that are not on the list.

• Community alarm service
• Special washing powders or laundry services
• Extra costs of special dietary needs
• Special clothing or footwear
• Extra costs of bedding
• Extra costs of heating, for example, if you need to keep your home warm because of your medical condition
• Reasonable costs of basic garden maintenance
• Reasonable costs of basic cleaning or domestic help
• Costs of buying, maintaining and repairing equipment you need because of your condition (for example, a stairlift, an electric scooter or buggy, a wheelchair, or computer equipment)
• Costs of personal help
• Transport costs

If you are not happy about the amount of disability-related spending we take into account when assessing your contribution towards the cost of your care, you can make an appeal.