£5 Short of Childcare

[Olliec]

My partner is returning to work soon - part time. We were hoping to receive the childcare support for our 1 yo in September when the 9 month + childcare support starts in England.
However when checking her income, it is slightly short of the £183 a week requirement. She receives the child benefits bit that leaves it £5 short. If she were to do a couple of hours dog walking or similar self employed work can this be added to her income to bump it over the line?
It would be crazy to loss out over £5!

She receives the child benefits bit that leaves it £5 short

What does this mean? The income threshold is for employment or employment income only, it does not include child benefit.

Hi apologies, I've worded that incorrectly.
I guess the question is whether the income can combine both employed and unemployed for one person?

Sorry I still don't understand. Is this unemployed benefits?

Take a look at this link
https://www.gov.uk/check-eligible-free-childcare-if-youre-working

Sorry, I'm obviously rubbish at this!

So for the free 15 hours childcare both parents need to earn £183 a week each. I earn over and my partner earns just under in her part time job. Can she supplement her earnings with a self employed job to bring the combined amount over £183?

Could she just do one extra hour at work a week?

She can but she'd need to register as self employed, complete a tax return etc etc....

Seems a lot of effort when she could just do another half hour at work?

Surely she could just do a extra hour at work?

At minimum wage your partner is working less than 16 hours a week - can she bump it up an hour a week?

Not many nurseries near me ONLY do 15 hours a week - it's simply not worth their time or money to do so - so will charge extra for sessions outside the free hours, and for meals, nappies etc.

Agreed, an extra hour or so would solve the issue but she's only just starting in the position and doesn't yet know if additional hours are available.

She used to be self employed years back so may not be a massive issue to resurrect that.

We have a childminder ready who has space on the two days we need.

If you need two days a week of childcare, presumably she’s earning enough to be eligible?

The other three days we have help of one of our parents.

This makes no sense, why do you need 5 days of childcare (between childminder and parents) if she is only working extremely part time?

Yes she can, but the additional employment she does needs to be declared for tax and national insurance with a paper trail of proof so can't really be cash-in-hand stuff.