Help with understanding child care

[SusieOwl4]

Can someone explain the free 30 hours child care . I understand you have to prove you are earning a certain amount per week to get the pre-school hours . My son and daughter in law are struggling financially and my daughter is self employed so her hours are irregular. If you don't earn the minimum amount what happens? Do you lose all preschool hours or just part of them ? We are trying to help them out but need to understand the system a bit .

The website is called childcare choices
The parent has to apply with details of income and then wait for a response
If they are eligible the parent will be given a code that they give to the nursery
The nursery then has to validate the code and then the child gets 30 hours till the end of the term
The parent will be given a date to renew by and it is up to the parent to renew every 3 months
If they are not eligible the child will still get 15 hours
However the deadline for applying for this term was 31st August
They can apply now to get a code to start in January 2018

Specialist guidance on eligibility for the self-employed is being developed, I don't know if it become public or just available to advisers but when it becomes available if it's publicly accessible I will provide a link to that.

Meanwhile, general guidance is here: childcare-support.tax.service.gov.uk/moreinfopar/2/

Key thing might be this:
"If you don't reconfirm, your childcare provider and local authority will be told that you no longer meet the requirements for a free childcare place."

My local authority, Surrey, has 6 specific times during the year when they will audit the eligibility.

If a parent received an ineligible reconfirmation decision in date range 1 January – 10 February, this will be picked up in the audit on 11 February and there will be a grace period until 31 March at which point the childcare provider must stop providing 30 hours free childcare. Once ineligible, parents can still access the 15 hours universal early education entitlement.

15 hours for 3 and 4 year olds is universal so it is only the extra which they need proof to qualify for. Does her partner work?