Hi, I have a client who is contracted to work 16 hours pw. She gets WTC and CTC including a child care element. Unfortunatley, due to various reasons (missed bus, late childminder etc) out of the first 6 weeks of her new employment, she only managed to do 16 hours on two occasions, the rest of the time she was doing 14/15 hours. When HB received these payslips, they removed the childcare disregard as obvioulsy she was averaging less than 16 hours. Just wondered if anyone had any ideas if there is a way around this. She's worked 16 hours for the last 5 weeks, but the problem is she never works over 16, so her average is not going to get up to 16. In the mean time, she's still having to pay her child care costs.

I think your client is clearly in remunerative work and the LA really should get over themselves! Have a look at HB Reg 6 - in particular paras 2 and 4. There is plenty of room within the reg to accommodate the small short-term blip in your client's initial working hours.

In any case the period over which an average is determined is not forever!