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, Playgroup or Pre-school.

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 now allowed to be claimed over two days providing you do 15 hours in two days. Previously parents have only been able to claim 12.5 hours for the two days.

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, depending on your income, you may be entitled to the Working family tax credit.

For further information contact our office on 01829 741608 or telephone the helpline on 0345 300 3900.