CTC when child is in foster care for part of the week

The claimant’s child has been in foster care for part of the week since last June, it was originally for two days a week and has progressed in stages to five days a week.

HMRC have discovered that the child was accommodated in this way and suggested that ALL CTC paid since last June was overpaid and is therefore recoverable.

Rule 4.1 of Reg. 3 CTC Regs says that CTC is not payable for ‘any period’ when the child is accommodated by the LA.

My question is what is meant by ‘any period’,  is it just the days when the child is actually in foster care or is the fact that the child is in foster care (even if it is for only one day in the week) enough to disentitle the parent from CTC from the date these foster care arrangements came into effect?

Instinctively I would have said that CTC should only stop for those days when the child is in foster care as for the rest of the week the parent has to feed and clothe the child etc and this would reflect the rules for boarding school and shared care arrangements but I cant see anything in the Regs that would either confirm or deny my supposition.

Any thoughts or guidance gratefully received!

i should think you need to see the relevant order (unless it’s a S20 placement in which case the LA should have issued proceedings by now if they are going to) and generally get an understanding of why this all is.  but logically, you’d think you were right ......
it seems odd… normally you’d expect foster care or not foster care.
unless it’s respite care for some reason, and has been misnamed?

Thanks for he advice-  it is a s.20 placement and for various reasons my colleagues are still deciding whether to go ahead or not with the full order. Although the child has some health issues I understand that these arrangements were not due to the child’s health but the parent’s health and their consequent difficulties coping.

As s.20 is in Part III Rule 4.1 of Reg. 3 applies but this still leaves the question of what is meant by ‘any period’ , there doesn’t seem to be any definition of what this means so arguably it could refer to just those times when the child is not with the parent.

Colleagues have confirmed that the parent retains parental responsibility and the child has, over the last year spent between two and six days a week with the parent and it seems that the parallels with boarding school arrangements are pretty clear. 

If anyone has any thoughts or references to how HMRC define ‘any period’ then I would be very grateful