Friday afternoon quiz - content of decision notices

Standard form of wording and format in decision notices issued to claimants (it is not specific to a particular claim):

“The Childcare Payment (CCP) of £XX is not used in the calculation”
The disregarded amount is deducted from your income”
“Amount of CCP disregarded from your income - £XX”

A virtual prize for identifying what a CCP is and how it might, or might not, affect the calculation of entitlement and how a claimant could be expected to know that from the above.

I’m assuming it’s HB and not UC because childcare fees are disregarded from income rather than added to the award.  Allowing for the constraints of a system-produced calc statement that always has to fit in the same place on a paper decision letter, it could be improved a lot by changing one word (“fees” instead of “payment”) and adding two more (“as income” between “used” and “in”).  Then I think most claimants would stand a fighting chance of interpreting it correctly.

At present it says “we don’t use your child care fees, here’s how we use your childcare fees”

Congratulation! Peter - it is, of course, a HB decision notice produced by our friends at Crapita. Presumably they use the particular format on behalf of more than one LA(?).

In the particular case the LA are now arguing a substantial overpayment for a failure to report a change in something that (a) does not exist (as described), (b) which the DN’s states doesn’t affect entitlement anyway and (c) appears in the DN below the whole of the income section and no where near the earnings sub-section. Hey Ho.

If I could do emoji’s on the lap top there would be a row of virtual beers etc for your enjoyment.