Notes for Guidance - Common Financial Tool

9.1 Housekeeping covers most of the day to day living expenses including household food, provisions and consumables that are required. The evidence relating to this set of expenditure would normally be obtained through scrutiny of bank statements.

9.2 However, this will not cover all expenditure items, as many transactions within this category will involve smaller cash purchases or transactions in a range of different shops.

9.3 Where the final assessed house-keeping expenditure is within the trigger figure limits, trustees and creditors are unlikely to query the allowance or seek further evidence and therefore, the money adviser/trustee does not need to obtain evidence of smaller amounts of expenditure include in the figures, if this is not easily forthcoming. However, any excessive spending or breaches of trigger figures should be documented and evidence provided.

9.4 Expenditure on tobacco and alcohol is allowable, although the money adviser/trustee should negotiate with debtors to try and minimise the costs and it is possible that an allowance may result in a debtor having to make some concessions in other areas of expenditure.

9.5 Where additional spending is required on medical grounds that will not be funded from a declared disability benefit, either a breakdown of spending, with details of any items purchased that relate specifically to the medical requirement, or a summary explanation from the money adviser, should be provided.

9.6 This guidance has highlighted that an award of DLA (or PIP) will act as an indicator to increased expenditure in other categories.