Why would Student Finance suddenly take Childcare Grant away?

[threefeethighandrising]

Received a letter from Student Finance today with a list of what they will pay us.

As usually it came with no cover note stating if anything had actually changed or why, but by comparing to old letters I can see they've suddenly taken away my childcare grant for the whole year.

This leaves us financially up shit creek. If they stand by it, we've no money to live on till Jan and it basically cancels Christmas (we're meant to be visiting ILs in Scotland). Even if they've made a mistake it could take weeks to sort out :(

Does anyone know why they might have done this?

I didn't get the letter till after they'd shut, and apparently their systems are down anyway so I'm unlikely to get a answer from them this weekend.

We are very late paying uni nursery fees - I thought that might make a difference but DP says he thinks not as they're separate agencies - could that be right?

Incidentally this is about the 6th letter they've sent us with changes since September. How are we supposed to budget, especially on such a low budget if they keep moving the bloody goalposts?

I'm just so fed up :(

hopeful bump

is saas open today to give you advice? or CAB?

think you may need to wait till monday

They've cancelled mine in the past before when I haven't sent the ccg2 confirmation of costs back in a timely fashion. Have you sent all yours back?

Thanks for the replies :)

I need to find out what the reason is first I reckon, but the Student Finance today systems are down until at least tomorrow evening, apparently.

I have sent all my forms back (or at least I think I have!) We've confirmed costs from last year and estimated them for the future. They send DP a childcare form which we ignored as we did the childcare in my name last year. Perhaps that's it? We reasoned they didn't need two forms about the same child, perhaps that was too logical?

I suspect it is a lack of a form or something (or at least I hope it is!)

Why can't they just tell you why they're making changes?! Their communication is awful! Every time they recalculate they send a new breakdown of payments, but they never send a cover note explaining what the change is (or even mentioning that they've made a change!). You have to work it yourselves by digging out their last breakdown of costs and playing spot the difference.

Grrr