Good cause for late reporting of Child Care Costs in UC

I am struggling to think this through.  My client, disabled and working part-time, was in receipt of CCC in her UC, up to September 2022.  At that time, her child became entitled to 15 hours’ free nursery provision.  Her District Nurse advised her that she could therefore not claim Child Care Costs, even though she had to carry on paying some Child Care Costs as her hours of work did not match exactly the times of nursery provision.  In April 2023, following advice from us she claimed and was paid costs ongoing, but nothing for the periods between September 2022 and May 2023.  (There was then a period of a few months when both client and her child were ill, so she lost contact with us).  However, now looking back on the issue, is it possible for us to ask for a revision of the decision of April 2023 not to pay costs for the previous 6 months?  Our client took advice from someone on whom she might be expected to rely.  Is that good cause for not reporting the costs earlier?  And does having a good reason not to report something (I suppose technically it is a change of circumstances from August 2022) earlier, allow a decision to be revised at a later point?

Childcare costs don’t work in quite the same way as most other aspects of entitlement because its an essential part of entitlement to help with the costs that they are reported to the DWP - so the entitlement does not exist unless correctly reported, as opposed to something like housing costs where it is simply the liability which dictates entitlement.

Late reporting of the childcare costs can however still be accepted where there is good reason for the delay and it is not more than 13 months - see reg 33(2) UC Regs.

If your client reported all of these costs in April 2023, then somebody ought to have referred the matter to a decision maker who should have considered the issue of whether she had good reason for the delay (for the reasons you give or otherwise).

If that was done and resulted in a decision that she did not have good reason, then you can still request a late any grounds revision of that decision. If it wasn’t decided, then it would be sensible in the first instance to ask the case manager to refer it to a DM.

If your client didn’t report the costs in April 2023, then it would still be possible to report most of them now and ask for good reason to be considered.

Thank you Elliot, that is so clear and really helpful. I will go back over the journal and see what her exact wording was and then go for a Mandatory Reconsideration or possible appeal.