Grants and Childcare Vouchers for 3 & 4 Year Olds

EARLY YEARS NURSERY GRANT

The childcare grants are available for all children the term after their 3rd birthday. The grants are available in Ofsted registered nurseries and playgroups. The amount of hours that can be claimed per week are up to 15. This can be split between two providers e.g. Nursery and Playgroup.

As a provider registered with Cheshire county council and Ofsted we are eligible to claim the grant on your behalf. This involves us completing all the paperwork. As parents you need only to sign a parent declaration form stating how many hours you are claiming here or elsewhere.

The full 15 hours entitlement is required to be taken over a minimum of 3 days per week. If your child attends 2 days per week the maximum entitlement is 12.5 hours per week. The Maximum entitlement in a single day per week is 10 hours with the minimum entitlement claim being 2.5 hours.

What this means in monetary value -:

The hourly rate that is deducted form your invoice is £3.84 per hour, up to 15 hours per week. This is payable for 38 weeks depending on how many weeks in the term.

Autumn Term 2010 has 14 weeks – 4 weeks for September, 3 weeks for October, 4 weeks for November, and 3 weeks for December invoice.

If you are eligible to claim the entire grant this is a savings of £2188.80 per annum.

CHILD CARE VOUCHERS

The cost of your childcare can be taken out of your salary before the NI and Tax contributions are calculated. This is done through your employer registering on one of the childcare voucher schemes such as Accor, Computershare, care 4 and various others. You can off set up to £243 per parent per month, gaining a saving of £1866 per annum for both parent’s. For parent’s joining a scheme from 6th April 2011 the government has capped the amount of voucher a tax-payer can request each month £243 for a Basic rate tax payer £124 for higher rate tax payer and £97 for additional rate tax payer.

Your employer deducts your childcare figure from your salary and then forwards the amount for the childcare to the nominated voucher scheme. If your voucher scheme is electronically released please check your payments are being sent.

THE WORKING FAMILY TAX CREDIT

If you are working over 16 hours per week and have a joint income of up to £55,000 you may be entitled to the Working family tax credit. Unfortunately the joint income goes down to £40,000 in April 2011 making a lot of families no longer eligible.

For further information contact our office or telephone the helpline on 0845 300 3900.