Government childcare scheme

[Neverender]

So I'm part of the scheme where I pay 80% of the childcare costs into an account and the government top it up by the extra 20%.

There is a £500 limit every quarter.

Apparently I had used up the £500 max top up but the website said (under the part where I make my payment) that I had £500 worth of entitlement in the period remaining.

I paid in my part but it was not topped up. At all.

When I questioned why I was told that the system is wrong for thousands of people and that I shouldn't believe what the website says. They went further in saying I would have been aware of this because I'd have know how much they have paid?

Am I being massively unreasonable to think it's their responsibility to manage their own system and they shouldn't give misleading inaccurate information to their users?!

P.s. happy for the daily mail to pick this up - it seems incredibly misleading.

SharkSave I've had exactly the same thing and this is something that's meant to benefit so many people...it's totally shit

I have noticed this issue, and yes it is irritating, but it's not like they're cheating you out of anything. You still get your £500 per quarter. They have a transactions log on their website that shows how much they pay in each month. It's not hard to add 3 months together to figure out how much you have left.

Bump! People need to know about this massive inaccuracy

I have a 2 yr old, a full time job and I'm doing an MBA part time. I don't expect their website to give me inaccurate advice. If you did that for a financial product you'd be in front of the FCA and I don't see why this is any different.

If you know the limit is 500, and you have been using it already this quarter, then surely it would be pretty obvious that it was incorrect?

Same here. But I never knew it was a bug. I’m hideously confused about it.

Question.., if I pay 4000 into my childcare account one three month period. Then pay nothing the next 3 month period, does the system give me £500 the first 3 month period then nothing the next 3 month period? Or does it ‘carry over’ and then credit me the second £500 as if i’d paid £2000 the first three months and then £2000 the second three months ?
Because I put money in erratically and as it always tells me I have allowance left I thought I was ok!

I called about 6 months ago and was told the same thing, the system isn't showing the correct remaining 'bonus'. I certainly wasn't offered £50 either!

The £500 cap is per trimester so if you don't it in that trimester it doesn't roll on to the next one.

I don't really care as I already maximise the scheme in just 2 months due to the excruciating cost of our nursery in London but what I find irritating is that I never seem to know when the next 3 month period starts. I've queried it a couple of times and they said it was the date showing on the confirmation letter and then to add 13 weeks to that...

I've just checked mine and it says

You are entitled to £500 a quarter
you have £xxx left for this period.

Just checked my two balances and tie in with my transaction record no issue. For one of my children we do exceed the £500 most quarters as the bill is high, for the other we rarely use it up.

Pez same here, but like you we tend to run out in month 3. So I use the transaction log to figure out each 3 month block based on when the payment from the government was low or nothing - that's month 3 in the quarter. When our childcare costs drop I'll just have to make a note separately. I agree it's irritating, and that it should be straightforward enough for them to do something about, but I can't get worked up enough about it to spend any time whinging at them when I know it'll make feck all difference.

It's not credited on payments in, it's payments out. Or that's what I was told?

It looks like it’s credited on payments in.

Ffs it’s ridiculous. I can’t even phone them up easily as it’s all in DHs name as there was a ‘bug’ in my account I first set up. But they weren’t able to delete the account. Or de-bug it. So after 6 months of that (paying nursery fees at full rate) I finally ranted at someone who was actually competent and they transferred the details to DH. They apologised and said it was a temporary work round. All in all it’s over a year since I was told the technical team would call me back within 2 weeks.... still waiting....