Do I still qualify for free childcare?

[MummaB96]

Hi, I'm new to this but just looking for advice/answers.
I applied for government free childcare for our daughter (born September 2024) to start this September. I was on maternity leave when I applied, so I qualified for it. I've now got to reconfirm details this month before she starts nursery but now that I have returned to work, I'm worried I do not meet the requirements anymore. I work 16 hours a week but because I work at a school and have my pay spread out over the year to cover the holidays, I don't quite earn £195 a week, instead I earn just under that by about £10. I can't take up any more hours at work, my husband works full time and we don't really have much support around us for someone else to be able to have our daughter 2 days a week for us until she's 2. So we're kind of relying on having this free childcare, in order for me to be able to work, if we don't qualify, unfortunately, I may have to leave my job which then causes more/other problems as we would not be able to survive/pay for bills relying on just my husband's wage.

So I guess what I'm asking is, would I still qualify for the free government funded childcare working 16 hours a week but not earning £195 per week?

I doubt it. Could you do extra hours in a breakfast club, lunchtime supervision or after school club to qualify.

Unfortunately not, I'm already doing, breakfast club, lunch duties each day and after school club on one day and I don't think there is anymore availability in after school club the other day.

It's such a shame you just need 1 hour extra. What about working at a local holiday club for 1 day a week if you could take your daughter along with you? Sometimes small jobs are advertised like Clerk to the governors or a local council. Keep an eye on local adverts.

Hello @MummaB96 this is exactly the sort of situation that’s coming up a lot at the moment on the boards so you’re definitely not alone in wondering how the eligibility rules work in practice, especially with things like term-time jobs and shared salaries.

We’ve got a couple of threads running in partnership with the Department for Education at the moment to help parents make sense of all of this, including a Q&A with an Early Years leader who’s helping posters get their heads around these kinds of questions and a general thread where people are sharing their experiences. It might be worth having a look or posting there directly. Good luck.

Did you reduce your hours when returning from maternity leave? If not you should never have received a code in the first place if you weren't going to meet the criteria and must have fed incorrect information to HMRC

Yes, I reduced my hours when I returned from maternity leave but I didn't give false information, just my circumstances changed between the time I applied and now

Keep any evidence you have that at the time you applied for the code you met or would have met the criteria as I know HMRC are clamping down on codes that have been issued but can't be reconfirmed. You may well be contacted in September if your childcare provider starts using the code to submit relevant evidence etc.