Not paid for contracted hours

Just looking for thoughts and experience at this point…..

I’m working with a lone parent who has a contract of employment for 18 hours per week.  On this basis she is paid working tax credit and pays childcare costs.

HOWEVER…

Since starting this job the only period where she has received wages equivalent to 18 hours per week was when she received some holiday pay.  On all other months she has been paid for less than 18 hours and often less than 16 hours each week.  She has advised that this is a common occurrence in her workplace (a large employer).

The difficulty is that as she is apparently working less than 16 hours per week (not sure yet how the hours are actually worked based on a monthly pay) her housing benefit award has been most recently calculated without including the childcare costs.

Is there a possibility of having her contracted hours taken into account when her housing benefit is calculated or is the deciding factor the actual number of hours worked as per zero hours contracts?

(I’d hoped that employment regulations would mean that she should be paid for contracted hours even when her employer was unable to offer them but it seems this isn’t the case if the employer is unable to offer the contracted hours ‘for business reasons’.  Wondering if there still might be an employment case as the employer is large and should be better able to manage their level of staff / work ratio - claimant states there are a number of people in her office on the same terms.  And don’t get me started on my worries about tax credits in this case!)

Thanks for any help / views / experience.

Mairi

she needs employment advice.  if her contract says 18 hours (as opposed to zero hours) then that’s what she should be working and getting paid for….