housing benefit and child care disregard as a contracted student?

oxondaemonfeurer

Hello, I have an urgent query that I am hoping some one may be able to help with regarding housing benefit and child care disregard when you are a student,

The background is that I am a full time PhD student, receiving a bursary and contracted through the research student agreement to do 35 hours per week. My husband works full time. We now have his 16 year old daughter living with us since Sept, my son who is 12 and our daughter who is 2. My daughter is now in full time childcare so that I can do my 35 hours per week (husband works variable shifts so cannot dedicate to specific days/times). This costs us £1100 a month.

When my step daughter moved in we put in a claim for housing benefit and was granted an award of £31.15 per week. At this point our childcare was in the region of £800 as we were waiting for a full time place and we had not received an updated tax credits notice. When the tax credit notice came through I sent it into the Council and then we were given the extra childcare sessions and so also informed them of the increased costs.

I had a letter yesterday telling me that the claim has been amended but that we do not meet the qualifying criteria for the child care disregard for couples which is "couples must both be in remunerative work (remunerative means at least 16 hours per week) or one of the couple must be in remunerative work and the other must be incapacitated, or in hospital, or in prison". This has now meant that with the tax credit adjustment also we do not qualify for housing benefit and have been overpaid £218.05.

They count my bursary as an income.

Is this correct? Do you know if I can appeal this? I have to 'work' 35 hours per week as a research student but they do not count this as remunerative work, what can I do about this?

many thanks in advance....

Oldernotwiser

Even the student loan for undergraduate degrees is counted as income so a PhD bursary certainly would be.

If your step daughter is still in FT education, do you claim child benefit and tax credits for her?

karenx

You arent in paid work though this is a placement, so its not counted for housing benefits. Same with tax credits you wouldnt get childcare costs paid as you both arent in paid employment over 16 hours per week each

oxondaemonfeurer

we do get tax credits for my step daughter and the child benefit claim is being processed but that could take until mid January.

I knew we wouldn't get tax credits towards childcare as my bursary is tax free and so doesn't register on the tax credit system for that, if you see what I mean, although of course I have told them about it for child tax credits...

I can see what you are saying about it not being strictly a paid employment and more like a placement but I am still expected to be in the office for 35 hours a week and therefore need childcare... If I was an undergraduate I could apply for a childcare grant from student support and that would help but it feels wrong somehow that the housing benefit people are not able to disregard the childcare costs when calculating entitlement for housing benefit when its not a luxury, I cannot do this without childcare, and if I can't do it I lose my bursary too...

does anyone know if an appeal against this is likely to succeed?

agrinnall

Seems to me they are having their cake and eating it, if they categorise your bursary as 'income' then it seems unreasonable for the work that you are contracted to do in order to receive that income to to be counted as such. If the rules say that then they are stupid and should be challenged, get your MP on the case.

Oldernotwiser

You really need to seek advice from your Student Services/Welfare Office as this is quite a specialised enquiry and they may well be the only people who know the answer.