Childcare help - universal credits

[Londongirl07]

Hey all.

I’m really confused...I thought regardless of your earnings (ok I’m sure anything over £50k per annum is a different story) you will get help with childcare?

I earn £32,000 per annum and pay for after school child care for my son and for the last 6 months I was getting some help then all of a sudden it’s stopped! They’ve closed my claim?

I’m so confused as before it wasn’t an issue and now it is? Nothing has changed in my earnings. 10 years ago when I was working full time I had help with nursery costs and now on universal credits and it’s a bit of a shambles!!

They’ve told me I need to go job centre and start my claim again! It’s all too much and now I’m having to pay it all. Whilst having to pay bills, food and mortgage so every little helps!!!

Really confused at the moment as I thought the childcare help was separate from the amount given on having kids and single parent allowance.

Are you using the tax free childcare system OP? This could be what you are thinking potentially?

For every £8 you pay into the government tops it up by £2. So essentially you can save 20% on your childcare bill.

www.gov.uk/get-tax-free-childcare

Hey all thanks for that! Never heard of this? I was originally using universal credits but they’ve stopped that now so I have just signed up for the tax free child care and eligible.

I’m confused on how this works...? Sorry I’m probably being so thick if someone can tell me how it works?

For example say my childcare bill is £176.00 do I pay in £176 to the site or direct to the school? How do I get the tax relief?

@Londongirl07 you pay it directly into the site, then you transfer it through the site to
The child care provider.
So you’d save £35.20 on 176 so you would only need to transfer across £140.80
When you are logged in you go to tax free childcare, manage my account, then you can add your childcare provider too it. (Search by postcode). Once added you can transfer money by bank card or via bank transfer - bank transfer is a lot faster.

Once it’s cleared you then send it to the childcare provider and the govt contribution shows up in your account. Hope that makes sense?

@Iliketonamechangealot9876542 thank you so much!!!