claiming income support and working 15 hours per week

If you have been claiming Housing Benefit for a long time, it may be more worthwhile to stop your claim for a week and claim Local Housing Allowance. Currently you are assessed on the number of bedrooms you need and what the rent is in your Broad Market Rental Area. At the moment if your rent is less than your BMRA then you can keep up to £15 a week surplus. Drawbacks - you will be liable for one week's rent and the £15 loophole is due to stop soon. However the benefit might be that you are entitled to more housing benefit under the new system.

You need to be eligible to claim Income Support (IS) ie be one of the categories of people who can claim eg carer, lone parent etc. If you are claiming as a lone parent your child has to be 12 or under. This age is reducing to 10 in October 09 and 7 in October 10.

The best thing to do is to get a benefit check at CAB or your local council's Welfare Rights Service to ensure you are getting all the benefits you are entitled to.