Universal credit childcare costs

[ByLimeSeal]

I'm hoping someone here might know the answer to this.
My daughter has recently started a new nursery which is within a private school.
We were claiming childcare costs through universal credit for her previous nursery, but I can't work out how we do this for the new one.
Our advisor said we need to enter the Ofsted registration for the nursery but as it's part of an private school, there isn't one. They have a company registration number or a charity registration number. I have asked in my journal but no one is getting back to me. Does anyone have any ideas?
It's just nursery fees we are claiming for, she won't be going to the main school. TIA

You need to use a registered childcare provider

www.gov.uk/guidance/universal-credit-childcare-costs

What childcare costs can cover
Your childcare must be with ‘registered’ childcare providers.
Usually that means they registered with OFSTED, the Care Inspectorate in Scotland or the Care Inspectorate Wales.
That could include nurseries, preschools, after-school clubs, breakfast clubs, childminders, nannies and holiday clubs.
Universal Credit will cover ‘reasonable’ childcare costs that help you work or get into work. That could include:
• a ‘settling-in period’ before you start work, so your child can get used to being in childcare
• childcare while you travel to work
• childcare in the assessment period after you lose a job
Childcare for changing work patterns or zero-hours contracts can also be considered ‘reasonable’.
For example, if you have to pay childcare costs so that you are available to work your usual hours, and then you actually get less work hours than you expected, that’s considered ‘reasonable’.

More here www.gov.uk/help-with-childcare-costs

You may have to use a registered childcare option which has an often number.

Thank you both :)

They are registered as an official nursery, just not with Ofsted. We're quite remote where we live and it's the closest nursery to us. Her previous one was further away which meant I was struggling to get back in time for work, hence the move.

Worried now that it means we're not going to be able to claim the costs back but I'm not sure how else we can make it work, it's such a minefield 😫

It doesn't sound like there are officially registered as a childcare service though.

You've advised that they are registered as a charity and registered as a company, but in order to be registered officially as childcare in England they need to be under Ofsted.

Thanks for replying 🥰 I've done some more trawling through the internet and found this from the UK parliament website: Some childcare providers such as private schools are not required to be registered with the relevant local authority, however childcare costs can still be
claimed from Universal Credit. These are known as approved providers.

I've called Universal Credit and spoke to someone surprisingly helpful who said I should just use the charity number so fingers crossed that covers us!

Hopefully as it's just a nursery at the end of the day, and costs the same as her previous one...it's not like I'm trying to claim back private school fees. Will leave this here incase anyone is in a similar position ☺️

Hi we are just about to go through the same thing and was wondering how did you get on? Did they approve & also did you pay the whole term in advance and then childcare reported monthly ?

Hi! They approved the childcare costs with no problem. We started off paying our invoices termly and reporting the whole lot in one go, UC then broke that down and paid a bit to us each month. I found it hard to keep track of this though so we arranged with the school to pay monthly.
We just divide our termly invoice by 3. When reporting our childcare costs each month I just supply the full invoice along with a screenshot of the email from the finance dept at the school confirming that we're paying monthly.
I hope that helps. I found it a minefield trying to sort it out at the start so let me know if you have any other questions 😊

thank you so much for replying, I will also request a monthly invoice from them as term time fees are so high and I don’t have that upfront anyway😭

I can’t think of any more questions right now as we’re going to go to the open day this weekend xxx