Reconfirming Free hours eligibility

[LamentedHelicopter]

Clearly I’d be better talking to either hmrc or nursery, but they’re not open til Tuesday.

I’m eligible for the free 30 hours and have been using them since Christmas no problem. I missed the march deadline to reconfirm eligibility, had stuff going on and just forgot. So obviously the code no longer works as it’s coming back as ‘not eligible’.

My question is will I still get the 15 universal free hours? I can afford the difference (as only in 3 days a week) but if I have to pay for all of it then I’ll have to pull her out til September.

I think you can get a leeway if you miss the reconfirmation. Sure its a term then you lose the hours.

Have you tried reconfirming now? If you're getting 'not eligable' then that's a different problem and implies your income or circumstances may have changed.

All 3 year olds are entitled to the universal 15 hours the term after they are 3.
There is a 3 month grace period on the 30 hour code....try reconfirming but either way you should get funding until June

To answer your question, yes definitely for the 15 hours. No one needs a code for that, you're automatically eligible. As for the additional 15 hours, I would also think you'll be ok for that too as there's a grace period which is usually the end of the term after it runs out. So don't worry too much.

So I applied in December for January start. I should have reconfirmed beginning of March, grace period ran out end of march so I think it’s only one month grace? I didn’t realise until last week when nursery tried to claim the hours for this term.

@KateyCuckoo when I reconfirmed (last week) it said eligible for me, but nursery were getting not eligible still. Whereas before reconfirming they said the code just didn’t work. When I called hmrc and apparently that’s saying eligible from September and to get funding April-aug I needed to reconfirm in march. Basically hmrc know I’m eligible (so I could do tax free childcare for example) but they only send that list to the council March/June deadline, so nursery can’t claim the hours from the council for this term. Presumably it says not eligible until you tell them otherwise as opposed to there being some ‘unknown’ category.

i think it’s ridiculous that we have to reconfirm to a totally different timescale to nursery claiming, they shouldn’t have to (and I’m happy to own my mistake) but it would be a lot less stressful if you just did it for headcount week and nursery could remind you.

Anyway I’m feeling a bit more reassured about the 15 hours now if that’s not linked at all to the 30 hours application.

Reconfirming takes lesson than a minute, probably only 30 seconds. You get plenty of reminders and you had a grace period as well to sort it.

@maspests I wasn’t making excuses, I think I’ve been clear that I’m only blaming myself. I made a mistake and I just wanted to know exactly how much I’d screwed up.

But I’ve never ever received a reminder (that I shouldn’t need) and the page itself says don’t worry if you’re late reconfirming you can still get government support (that I shouldn’t rely on). And it takes more than 30 seconds to click through to the log in page, then hope I have the details for the right government gateway account, once on the system then it’s quick.

You must reconfirm every 3 months. You can apply before the term that your child turns 3 and must reconfirm 3 me maths later even if you have only had 1 month of funding. At the end 🔚 f is that month you would get 3 months grace period you tell the nursery that you've reconfirmed they input your code into the provider portal and that then verifies the code.

@jannier do you have a reference for the 3 month grace period anywhere? Obviously that would be ideal if it’s true and I can ask the nursery to try again Tuesday, but it might help if I had something to back it up.

You should have been given your grace period end date when you got your last set of dates for the code.
Can you check back at emails received?
If the end date was in March the grace period is likely to be the end of August as it's usually the end of the following term.
If you're in your grace period providing your claim for extended hours began before the end date you will still be eligible for the 30 hours with that provider to the grace period end date.

I think it's the end of the next term so it may be correct. Sometimes it can be months, sometimes a month. Think you've just hit unlucky. They should be able to get it sorted before the actual headcount tho (which is happening in the next cpl of weeks). Ask them to contact their LA and get it ironed out.

As a provider I've had several go into grace period your nursery are probably not looking

No it's 3 months

This is the schedule on the gov website so if your code was due for renewal it shows the dates the grace period runs to.....are you sure when yours is an out?