Thank you mickeymack, very useful documents. Looks like I will be able to claim tax credits but to claim housing benefits we need to move out. I may receive accommodation instead of maintenance, but I will loose maintenance then. As I understand normally maintenance would not affect benefits.

Hi All. I am currently living with my son at his fathers house and my son has a disability (Receiving level 2 DLA). Relationships with his father always were difficult but we kind of tried to have some relationships sharing house on a part time basis (he used to work and live part time abroad, now he works In the UK but it takes 3 hours travel to work and he is staying near work part time (currently renting a flat). Financially we had an agreement that I pay him part of the mortgage as a rent but with the time as expences for our disabled son increased I have stopped paying this part of mortgage (but was paying all was required for our son and other expences). Rent payment was not formalised and we had verbal agreement and in was captured in old email. Now we are definitely going through separation on the basis of multiple adulteries and other problems. Sharing house with him becomes too difficult for me. My situation at work also become bit shaky and I am afraid I may loose it soon. Our son is autistic and changes are extremely difficult for him so from this point of view will be better if I and my son will stay in the house if possible. The question is if we stay there would the rent agreement be legal and will it allow me to receive benefits? For the child's benefits we need to keep for him everything as consistent as possible, as few changes as possible. But if his father will stay in the house from time to time would it affect my benefits? Clearly for autistic child this will be too unsettling if he will have to be taken to other town regularly to see his father when we actually can at least try to keep this aspect of our life as it was.

Thank you, this is the response I was looking for!

Fantastic! Thank you Emmzzzi! It is certainly opening them a door without putting me at risk!

Yes he is receiving level 2 DLA. My request is to explore worst case scenario, this is is where the vague comes from. It does not mean that I am not doing what I am supposed to do in terms of arranging childcare and getting more clarity from school. My question was about what the critical amount can be and if I can count on any renumeration iin case of dismissal and what the official ground for the dismissal will be. Thank you all!

Yes he has SEN statement, support at school, social worker etc.. Things still can fell apart. None of these can help with the childcare in case of emergency.

Well, that's the point. I do not know how to ask so they will not use it against me. They do not tell me directly that they want me to go, just torturing with these assessments ..

Does it mean that I will be dismissed without any renumeration?

My son is 7 and has a disability. Informal means that it does not count towards maximum 15 days that school is allowed exclude pupils before exclusion become permanent.

Recently I have to take lot's of time off as my son was excluded (informally) from school. I had a meeting with HR today and they reminded me that I can only take few days more of holidays and need 21 days notice for unpaid parental leave . What will happen if I take all my holidays, all parental leave I am allowed to take and still need to take time off because of another emergency exclusion. What can they do? What amount of time extra given to me will be considered 'reasonable adjustment'? As a reasonable adjustment should employer allow me take parental leave with less of a notice time? If I ask to take half day off and they say no because it is too short (I work only 5 hours a day normally) are they refusing to do 'reasonable adjustment'? If I get dismissed on this ground am I likely to get r enumeration? I am in this job for nearly 7 years.

Thanks for your replies guys! I will share more details on my case, iin case somebody will be happy to discuss. Sorry if it is too long/too detailed! I am in this job for nearly 7 years, and had good reviews first 5 years but not last 2 years. 2 years ago new management came and organisation changed a lot since then. I am IT specialist and we are now off-shoring most of the jobs rather than developing on site. So while my job description remained the same (I believe) work demands has changed., it is more supervision, management, mentoring and business critical production support. I also work part time as I have to look after my disabled son. I kind of understand that with current demands I probably do not fit to this work very well, as it is now much more time critical and stressful. But I can not afford to leave the job as I will not be able to find any other part time job in my area. Since 2 years ago I received bad review for the first time I feel like I am gradually pushed out. First year I did not received much details of what exactly is so bad. Second year my review contained some details and then I was able to challenge some of factual information it included. For example in my review it was stated that I do 'many mistakes' in my deployments. I spent whole night digging out deployment issues information from logs and calculating what is average number of mistakes in my deployments comparing to average number of mistakes within the team. Mine was not higher and 'many mistakes' was removed however review still remained negative with just 'mistakes' (it did not say 'average number of mistakes within the team'). This year they put in place performance improvement plan and I agreed to take certification exams in 6 month, however to assess my capabilities management has chosen not the objective exam but on site assessments managed by my technical lead. Few words on my technical lead. He is new guy in the organisation with quite aggressive work approach. So initially when he came he was asking me to stay overtime or spend my after work time to learn new things in my area. I pointed out that I only can spend contractual hours on work related issues and have other responsibilities. He is not expressionless these demands directly now but I think attitude is there. Within last 5 month I have 6 assessments in 2 different areas (one is my speciality, the other one is not) with the final one about a month ago. I think I actually done quite well but to my surprise found that I got about 7 points under the threshold. I talked to one of the markers (the other one was my 'aggressive' technical lead) and he said 'I do not recognise the marks, maybe you can ask it to be remarked). It was remarked but I still got 1.5 point lower than I need. Questions are mostly (2/3) subjective so it is easy to make score as you wish. I also talked to third marker he also agreed that the marks are a bit low. For my capabilities meeting I provided all this information in writing. I also pointed to some inconsistencies in the pack. For example it was confirmed that questions will be within certain areas or 'basic questions' but they were not within those areas and not basic enough for 2 markers (who are considered to be experts) to answer on these questions when I asked in our conversation. All this was discussed on the capability meeting and I still got first warning. I also was asked to retake both assessments. By now I am completely exhausted with all the assessments, appellations, investigations, ongoing work, other responsibilities and challenges I have outside of work. So now i would like to get dismissed but with some redundancy package if possible. But I am not sure if I have enough to support my case. I can point to inconsistencies in the pack. I can say that I was not assessed on any work that I was done within this year (all just on the basis on subjective assessment). I can say that I was the only one who was asked to do the assessment (8 for 6 month!) and I can prove that those who considered experts were not able to answer some of the questions from my exam. I can possibly talk to the markers again, I think they can agree that the assessment as such does not show me 'incapable'. I am not sure what else I can do.

I have a question on capability dismissal. I have recently received First warning on my performance. The ground for it is an assessment that I had a month ago. I had few objections on the assessment (the way the assessment was done, range of questions etc..). I have raised these issues on the formal meeting with my line manager and HR representative, but I still got First Warning. The formal letter I have received is mentioning my right to appeal to one of CEO. I do not think that it will make much sense to appeal as I believe this is happening with management approval. But I do not think that assessment was fair and I think I have enough evidences for this. My question is as following: if I will be dismissed and go for tribunal will it take into account that I appealed or haven't appealed on First Warning. Is it worth to appeal from this point of view? Many thanks. Emily