Page 3 | Can someone please tell me when dc will get free hours? Tearing my hair out

Yebbey · 2024-01-16T15:20:43+00:00

Dc is 2 on 22 November. I earn 58k as single parent. When does he get free hours? I can’t find anything online. Can I still use tax free childcare too? Thanks

Snozzlemaid · 16/01/2024 18:11

So much wrong information on this thread. And I'm not surprised. The government couldn't have made it any more complicated.

If your dc will be 2 in November you may be able to get 15 hours from September this year if you meet the criteria.
Not 30 hours. (30 hours for this age group is due to start in September 2025).
You will need to be working and meet the criteria.

Even if we have a new government sometime this year, changes would take at least 12 months to be implemented, so I would expect the current plans for funding this year to go ahead.

TinyYellow · 16/01/2024 18:13

Is your child already at a nursery? Or enrolled to start in one? If so your best answer would come directly from them. Your chosen nursery might decide not to offer free hours from two no matter what the government does. Or it might offer the hours but charge top ups, in which case it won’t be free at all.

ncforthisthreadonly24 · 16/01/2024 18:30

Can anyone advise whether my DD will get the 15 free hours? She turns 3 in April this year.

Agree it's so confusing!

Original poster

Yebbey · 16/01/2024 18:44

AngryBirdsNoMore · 16/01/2024 18:03

For the current system, 2 year olds only get free hours if the parents are in receipt of certain benefits.

For the new system - being implemented from April - all 2 year olds get the free hours. There may be a cut off for parents earning over £100k, I’m not sure.

Simply, if the new policy is implemented:

your son will get 15 funded hours from September 2024, 30 funded hours from January.
the cost of the funded hours for the parent varies per nursery.
There are long waiting lists for many nurseries and no guarantee that they’ll have a place given the new rules and the pressure that puts on them.
no one can guarantee whether the policies will definite come in as planned or will be delayed or cancelled.

Tax free childcare is a misnomer. it doesn’t make all childcare tax free. But as long as you’re working but earning under £100k, you can create a tax free childcare account, deposit money into it to pay your childcare provider, and receive £500 top up per quarter year. So it’s a free (up to) £2000 per year. You then pay your childcare provided from your tax free childcare account (ie not straight from your bank account).

Edited

@AngryBirdsNoMore thanks. Do I need to keep a record of how much tax free I’ve had so I don’t go over 2k? Or will that be flagged on the account?

OP posts:

Original poster

Yebbey · 16/01/2024 18:44

TinyYellow · 16/01/2024 18:13

Is your child already at a nursery? Or enrolled to start in one? If so your best answer would come directly from them. Your chosen nursery might decide not to offer free hours from two no matter what the government does. Or it might offer the hours but charge top ups, in which case it won’t be free at all.

@TinyYellow they offer it but still 12 pounds a day

OP posts:

Original poster

Yebbey · 16/01/2024 18:45

Snozzlemaid · 16/01/2024 18:11

So much wrong information on this thread. And I'm not surprised. The government couldn't have made it any more complicated.

If your dc will be 2 in November you may be able to get 15 hours from September this year if you meet the criteria.
Not 30 hours. (30 hours for this age group is due to start in September 2025).
You will need to be working and meet the criteria.

Even if we have a new government sometime this year, changes would take at least 12 months to be implemented, so I would expect the current plans for funding this year to go ahead.

@Snozzlemaid what is the criteria? I can’t see it anywhere

OP posts:

dollybird · 16/01/2024 18:58

Yebbey · 16/01/2024 18:45

@Snozzlemaid what is the criteria? I can’t see it anywhere

Show quote history

Criteria is on the MSE website I linked to earlier.

Snozzlemaid · 16/01/2024 19:00

Here you go...

Can someone please tell me when dc will get free hours? Tearing my hair out

FoxtrotSkarloey · 16/01/2024 20:17

Ref. going over the £2k for TFC, the way it works is that you set up a TFC account via gov.uk.

You then pay in as much as you want, when you want. As long as you've paid in £2,000 per quarter, they will top it up with £500.

You then set up for the money to be transferred from the TFC pot to the nursery when required to cover your monthly bill or pay towards it.

You can pay in as much as you like to cover nursery bills in full, but the government funding is capped at £500/quarter.

Zanatdy · 16/01/2024 20:27

You should be eligible on 58k so hopefully you’ll get it from this September. But get your child registered at a nursery as part of the problem as others have said is there aren’t enough childcare places for this. If your child is already at a nursery then you should be ok. But it will be closer to the time that nurseries will confirm probably but I’d imagine most will have to offer this. As others have said, there’s an election this year, and Labour could throw it straight out, but given they are labour, chances are that won’t happen. The policy hasn’t been well thought out and is fraught with problems so I wouldn’t bank on it 100% but I guess you have no other option. You’ll get the funded hours from January regardless, but bear in mind they aren’t equivalent hours at private nursery. So when mine went it wasn’t 15hrs at private nursery fee’s but it was money off the bill. I can’t remember now what I got but you can ask them how it works as they will be able to tell you.

AngryBirdsNoMore · 16/01/2024 20:39

Yebbey · 16/01/2024 18:44

@AngryBirdsNoMore thanks. Do I need to keep a record of how much tax free I’ve had so I don’t go over 2k? Or will that be flagged on the account?

Show quote history

No, it’s automatic. Essentially you put money into the account, and the top up will be automatically added. It tells you at the bottom of the screen how much you have left to be added in that quarter.

It is up to you how often you add money. I add on a month by month basis, but my boss used to add it all at the start of the year so he didn’t have to think about it thereafter. Nice to have £20k in cash to just add I guess!!

But it will total no more than £2000 per year. It’s better than a poke in the eye but it’s nothing like tax free!

Charlie2121 · 16/01/2024 20:40

Zanatdy · 16/01/2024 20:27

You should be eligible on 58k so hopefully you’ll get it from this September. But get your child registered at a nursery as part of the problem as others have said is there aren’t enough childcare places for this. If your child is already at a nursery then you should be ok. But it will be closer to the time that nurseries will confirm probably but I’d imagine most will have to offer this. As others have said, there’s an election this year, and Labour could throw it straight out, but given they are labour, chances are that won’t happen. The policy hasn’t been well thought out and is fraught with problems so I wouldn’t bank on it 100% but I guess you have no other option. You’ll get the funded hours from January regardless, but bear in mind they aren’t equivalent hours at private nursery. So when mine went it wasn’t 15hrs at private nursery fee’s but it was money off the bill. I can’t remember now what I got but you can ask them how it works as they will be able to tell you.

The 15 hours doesn’t really work out to be worth much really. It is 11 hours per week if you stretch it over the year.

If you’re using nursery FT that only constitutes about 25% of your hours and even then it doesn’t cover the whole hourly rate.

Our bill went down from about £1500 per month to about £1250 with the free hours. We also aren’t eligible to use the 20% tax free savings either.

Considering we are funding this using income that has already been taxed at 62% it means we have to use about 30k of pre-tax income to pay the fees even in receipt of the 15 free hours.