Someone i'm working with has the chance of a few hours work and will need to arrange childcare for the time she is working. The employer will pay towards the childcare costs but I can't seem to find out how these payments will be treated by the Income Support section.

Surely they can't be treated as income, otherwise they would be 'stung' twice.

Any thoughts?

It looks like the payments for childcare would be treated as income - see IS (Gen) Regs 1987; reg. 35 (1)(f).

This means that the person would pay for the child to be looked after, and any money they received by the employer to reimburse them would also be treated as income. This can't be right.

Thanks I'll bear that in mind - certainly shouldn't be right!

On a historical note the non-disregard of childcare costs in IS was the subject of Jackson and Cresswell v The Chief Adjudication Officer. From memory this was a testcase in which CPAG were the solicitors. They may still be interested in such cases.