contracted hours

[littlemissangrypants]

I have been working for last 5 months. At first i was contracted to do 28.25 hours a week which in reality with 0hours meant a 55 hour week. I asked to change my hours to 19 and management were ok with this. The contract has not been signed yet.
I have just been given my hours for january and am only going to be working 15 hours plus 20 that are 0hours. It leaves me with the possibility of having to sign on as tax credits can not confrim that i can count my 0 hours.
Sorry if this makes little sense but could really do with some advice. Can work just give me less than my contracted hours? and could they sack me if i am forced to sign on as a result of this?

[flowerytaleofNewYork]

Not sure what you mean by "0hours"? Is that overtime or something? Is the 15 hours plus 20 "0hours" for the whole of January or weekly?

[littlemissangrypants]

in care work overnights are often 0 houred, as in they don't count when they work out how many hours we work. I think that's just so they don't break the EU working time directive.
I will only be working 2 nights in january and 60 hours on top of that. So again technically 80 hours over the month. 0 hours don't get paid at minimum wage but at a flat rate of £50 a night.
It is very confusing even for me. Hope that clears that up a bit

[Lonecatwithkitten]

Not certain about contracted hours. But due to doing on call rotas know a bit about working time directive and out of hours. On call time if at home or sleeping over in residential care doesn't count towards working time directive. However, if you are called out and have to attend to someone these hours do count. We keep a causal record to ensure that we do not contravene the working time directive over a 3 month period.

[Jenny123G]

Just dealt with something similar at my work.
Your contracted hours are your minimum hours worked per week. They can offer you more but cannot cut you below unless you volunteer. So basically if you are contracted to 8 hours a week over 1 day and they only rota you in for 6 and you don't agree to it they have to pay you the contracted hours.
If they are looking into a long term reduction of your contracted hours they have to go through consultation period with you. Similar to a redundancy situation.
On a similar matter if over period of 12 weeks you have worked over your contracted hours you can demand an increase in your minimum contracted hours and they must oblige.
Hope that helps and makes sense.