Commentary on Sections Conditions of Eligibility Section 11: Neither the person nor his or her partner may be claiming universal credit
63.Section 11 sets out the sixth condition of eligibility. This is that the person who makes a declaration of eligibility must not be claiming universal credit on the date on which they make that declaration. This condition must also be met by any partner of that person. This prevents a person receiving childcare support under this scheme and universal credit at the same time.
64.Subsection (1) provides that a person meets this condition where, on the date of the declaration, universal credit is not payable to them and they have not made a claim which would lead to universal credit becoming payable to them for the relevant assessment period.
65.Subsection (1) refers to universal credit payable for ‘a relevant assessment period’. This term is defined in subsection (2) as any assessment period for the purposes of universal credit in which a declaration of eligibility is made or in which all or part of an entitlement period falls. This means that a person will fail to meet the condition in this section if universal credit is payable to them for a period which coincides with the date they make their declaration of eligibility or with the entitlement period for which they are making the declaration.
66.Subsection (3) provides that for the purposes of subsection (1), if the person has a universal credit award of nil (for example, where a sanction under universal credit has been applied) they will still be treated as having universal credit payable to them and so will not meet the eligibility condition in this section.
67.Subsection (4) deals with cases where a person is making a declaration of eligibility in order to open a childcare account. In such a situation, the person will not yet know the date of their first entitlement period, and so the three-month period following the date of that declaration is to be used instead.
68.Subsection (5) allows regulations to be made to specify other circumstances in which a person will be treated as meeting this condition of eligibility.