Universal Credit and Childcare Costs for a Teen?

[CrumbleCrumpet]

DH works part time as he’s a carer to our disabled DS and myself. I have a disability which resulted in my having to leave my job recently. I receive LCWRA on our UC.

Our DS is 15 and goes to a school for DC with ASD. He has SN. He spent 3 years out of school. We want to top up his education with tutoring to help him catch up ready to sit exams. The tutor we have found is OFSTED registered.

The provider has told us that they are classified as a childcare provider and we can therefore apply to claim back some of our costs via UC. This would greatly help us, but I’m unsure if we qualify.

The tutoring would take place after school hours and after DH has finished work. Would this therefore not count as childcare?

TIA

Under UC childcare costs are only accepted if it enables a parent to work or prepare for work so having a tutor when there is a parent available to care for the child (you said DH would be home from work) would not be accepted.

One of you would need be working to claim Childcare Costs, so as long as DH continues Work and the Childcare Costs are proportionate to his Work / Earnings you should be fine.

In other words, if your Partner’s contracted to 8hrs per week, you’d be hard pressed to claim 30hrs worth of Childcare.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/universal-credit-childcare-costs

For Childcare Costs under UC, both members of a Couple need to be in paid Work OR if only one is in Work, the other needs to meet an exception (Carer / LCW / LCWRA) - so you both technically have an exception, so as long as one of you is in paid Work you’ll be able to claim.

That's incorrect I am afraid in regards to the OPs situation and it explains why in the link you provided. The tutor will be with their son when DH is home from work this means they are not eligible as childcare costs are only provided to enable the parent to work or prepare for work.

@BuckaDuck thank you, it makes sense why we wouldn’t be able to claim childcare costs back in our situation.

@8dayweek Thank you for your post too.

The system only scrutinises the work condition (or exception to the work condition). It doesn’t try and match up to when the person is at work etc. Fair usage comes into it, but that’s all.

Is your dh listed as a carer on uc? I'm not sure the above is correct?
We claim the costs of childcare back. My dh is a stay at home dad, our eldest attends sn school. Our daughter goes to nursery and dad is at home... we checked with UC and this was permitted/allowed as the reason one parent doesn't work is due to caring for a disabled person. He is not preparing or looking for work at all. It might be worth messaging to double check