December closes with notices still un-issued

Contractual dates ignore holidays unless the contract says otherwise. Applications land just before shutdown - often deliberately; the office empties; the notice windows run out over the break - and January opens on sums that crystallised while nobody was watching. It is the payment machinery's most predictable ambush, and it repeats because each December feels too busy to prepare for.

The counter is a December-proof calendar: every date falling over the break identified in November, the notices due in those windows drafted before the site closes, and one named person watching the calendar through the shutdown. Deadline tracking is that discipline all year round; the shutdown is just the month it earns its keep most visibly.