Urgent! What on Earth are they doing? Regarding childcare account

[Shittenshite]

My daughter is 3 and gets 30 hours tax free childcare. She attends preschool 5 days a week.

A few weeks ago I had an email from Gov.uk telling me I needed to sign into my childcare account and confirm my child's details. I did it the same day (went via Gov.uk and didn't click any links in the email for safety) and stupidly didn't take a pic BUT it said something about usually people get a decision the same day. It confirmed that I'd confirmed her details and I thought no more about it. I didn't get a decision via email at all.

On 28th September I had an email reminding me that it hadn't been done (it had) so I logged in and it said the details had been confirmed but also said I needed to confirm again 3 weeks from that date. My partner remembers it and was confused too. I was very confused but at the time we were rushing to an appointment and I forgot about it. On this date, the 28th Sept, I took a screenshot of my laptop screen.

Now (during the night) I've had an email telling me that the tax free childcare has been stopped as I didn't confirm my daughter's details. I've looked at the screenshot I took on 28th September and it says I needed to reconfirm details between 11th December 2023 and 7th January 24. The dates seem so random but in any case I assumed it was at least temporarily sorted.

Can anyone please explain this? Obviously I'll contact them in the morning but does this mean my child can't go to preschool now, from today?

Your contract is with her preschool, so you either pay them directly or make a claim for funded hours. I can't imagine they will kick her out overnight! They will just want their bills paid. If you can't afford to cover the full costs while this is sorted out, that will be tricky, but the preschool may be understanding.

I can't explain what's happened to your reconfirmation, but assuming you did it properly and it's an error at the government's end, I would hope you'd would get reimbursed the costs eventually. That exact scenario hasn't happened to me, but we did once have a long period when we couldn't log into the account (their fault), we had to pay the full bills and they reimbursed us later. Making the claim was easy once they admitted it was their fault. It did take a while though, and I'm not sure what would have happened if we couldn't afford to cover the cost temporarily from savings.

Thank you @fivetriangulartrees

We won't be able to afford the full costs. I'll contact the school as soon as they open and get their advice.

Where did it say about confirming again within 3 weeks? Because that's different from the 11th December time frame.

The tax free childcare and 30hrs free childcare are two different things and I'm wondering if you've somehow managed to apply for one without the other. Don't panic and give them a call.

The website states if you miss the deadline that "You can still reconfirm, but the amount of government support you get may be less if you weren't eligible for the full 3 months." So I don't think you're going to suddenly get fully billed.

Give them a call, they are usually very helpful.

When did she start her 30 hours? The dates are seemingly random because you have to reconfirm every 3 months, the dates given will be 3 months feom when you last did it (or should have done it) did you reconfirm details in August or September?

I have a feeling you've missed your previous reconfirmation.

Any update @Shittenshite ?

Sorry, yes. I rang school yesterday morning. The funding is still in place for the Autumn term. It doesn't just stop if part-way through a term.

Logged into childcare account and it says I confirmed the details the 2nd week in September. I'm baffled, but it might be true that I've unintentionally applied for one without the other. I'll see if I can give them a call and find out what's gone wrong.