Missed mid-term reconfirmation

[aedwards06480]

I know it's my own fault, but I missed the reconfirmation deadline for funded hours by 9 days this month. Our nursery manager is currently off, and the council aren't calling me back so I'm not getting any answers. Has anyone experienced this before? Documents seem to suggest we'll be in a grace period until next term when the next funded hours will be eligible from?

Have you done it now? As long as you're still eligible it will be fine.

@Tulip8 I did it yesterday and got immediately reconfirmed. I had a few harrowing calls with the childcare team at HMRC (boys reading off scripts) who said versions of "unfortunately because you missed the deadline you are not eligible until next term" then a more reassuring one with a woman who was much more competent and suggested grace period would kick in...

Set yourself a reminder for next term now 2 days before deadline!

@mitogoshigg it's now been moved to my husband's in-tray. Clearly this is my own fault, but it feels like an incredibly cruel and unsupportive system if you really can just lose all of your funding because you forgot to do something, when they send no reminders, and you're managing trying to get back to work with a tiny baby. Life feels very hard at the moment.

Ok you're going to need a bit more resilience than this! It's not a difficult task really, when the benefit is so huge and it's a whole month window that you have to complete it. Not everything is someone else fault or responsibility. Hmrc do send reminders and if that's not enough you need to set your own reminder. Settings and local authorities also have a massive amount of paperwork to complete to deliver this funding. Really parents have very little to do considering they are the beneficiaries.

But you do get reminders, it’s best to also put a reminder on your phone so you don’t forget next time. It really isn’t a cruel and unsupportive system. No one has the time nor money to repeatedly chase thousands of people if they miss their deadline and it’s definitely not down to the settings to do so.

Were you still in the grace period when you reconfirmed?