Childcare Grant has been reassessed to £0 entitlement

Hi all,

My partner started a 2 year Masters degree in Sept 2022 with undergraduate funding on Student Finance.

When we applied last year, we were receiving the childcare element of UC and had to submit a UC statement (for proof of dependent). The statement we uploaded was from March 2022 and included the childcare element as my partner hadn’t yet started college.

When we were awarded the childcare grant and my partner started college in September, we no longer claimed childcare from UC and only used the childcare grant.

When reapplying this year, they used the same evidence of dependent (statement from March 2022) and have decided we were not entitled to the Childcare grant last year or this coming year as we were claiming UC childcare at the same time. We’ve called and explained that this wasn’t true and have uploaded all statements from September to now to show we haven’t received this all year. It’s been almost 3 weeks and we’ve had no response.

My partner is starting placement this week and we can’t afford our nursery fees.

How long does it normally take to review something like this? Are we likely to have the grant reassessed and awarded back? We had a few hundred left in this years grant that we were really counting on.

Thanks for any advice!