Childcare provider missed deadline, what now?

[Piotr]

Hi to all we are new on the forum, we are a small family of four living in London, and we have a problem with the free 15h childcare. Long story short my childcare provider missed the deadline to submit the code we gave them nearly 3 weeks ago. Now they say we have to fight hmrc and the council to get our money… I’m 99% sure this is their fault but leaving this matter for later is there anything I can do to maybe convince hmrc to let my childcare provider use the code and get the money for the 15h I’m entitled? And if this is actually their fault what can I do? I’m not willing to pay for their mistake.
kind regards to all and thank you

Hmm I'm not sure how this has happened already, we're only one month in to the term.

What exactly has and hasn't happened? No long story short. Details if possible. Has the cm contacted the LA for help?

It's normal hmrc who you need to contact. They issue the code but then it has to be given to the local authority who actually administer the funding. They will have given settings a deadline for letting them know codes. Whos3 fault ir is will depend on when that deadline was and whether you gave them the code before that date.

Sorry, that's should say it's NOT hmrc you need to contact

I'd call the early years department at your local council and see what they say.

This happened to us - the nursery missed a deadline for some paperwork by a couple of hours.

We paid the full price in September, they applied to the council and got their funding backdated to the start of September, and then the funding amount showed as a credit on our next bill.

They fixed it all very smoothly, it was not a big issue (other than the slightly annoying bill in September, but obviously a smaller bill for October).

We had to submit our codes before the end of August for September. I’m surprised your nursery didn’t ask you to provide them earlier.

That's an internal requirement of the nursery (and a sensible one so they don't offer free care to those without codes). However the codes deadlines for LAs won't be before the start of term.

When did you get your code? Because you needed to have got it before the end of August.

But my LA is only just doing headcounts of funded children from settings this week and they can usually make later adjustments too.

When did you receive the code?

Hi to all thanks for all the messages. So we were given the code 13th of September that same day we sent it over to the childcare provider, Wednesday at 23:50 I get message asking for the code (I was sleeping) so first thing in the morning I send it over, and they say it’s no good, we call the child support line and they tell us that the nursery had 10 days to do all the paperwork related and that they missed the deadline (I have no clue if this is how it works) now the nursery tells me I have to fight hmrc and council to get the money, I’m confused (I feel like this shouldn’t be our problem we got everything done and gave all the information to both parts) and annoyed because this should be sorted days ago and it’s not…

If you only got the code on 13th September then I think you are too late for this term. If you wanted funding from 1st September you would have needed to apply for your code before 31st August, that isn't the nursery's fault.

This is from the government website

Yes it's you that's late not the childcare provider. You needed your code by 31st August so yes you will be paying. It's not their mistake.

Unfortunately, you missed the deadline for the code. This isn’t the nursery’s fault.

Your code won't be valid until January because it wasn't issued by 31st Aug I'm afraid.

When did you apply for the code?

We were late once (our fault, ahem DH’s fault!) and the council said the funding is already allocated. I don’t think you will get the funding this term. Sounds like you were late in this case.

I'm guessing you're not coming back @Piotr ?

The code needs to start before Sept 1st for this term. Doesn't matter when the nursery submits it as long as it's before their headcount day (ours is at the end of this week). I think it was you who missed the deadline unfortunately.