Funding
Funding, Tax Free Childcare and Universal Credit
Government childcare funding can be a confusing subject to understand and navigate around. In Wales you may be entitled to funded childcare the term after your child turns 3 years old if you meet certain criteria:
To be eligible for the Childcare Offer Wales:
- you must live in Wales
- each parent’s gross income must be £100,000 or less per year
Gross income is the total income before any deductions including but not limited to:
- pension contributions
- health insurance
- salary sacrifice schemes
- annual bonuses or dividends
You must also be one of the following:
- employed and earning at least, on average, the equivalent to 16 hours a week at National Minimum Wage or Living Wage.
- on Statutory Pay and Leave (Sick, Maternity, Paternity, Parental, Bereavement or Adoption Leave)
- enrolled on a further or higher education course that is at least 10 weeks in length
More information of eligibility can be found at: https://www.gov.wales/childcare-offer-for-wales-campaign
If eligible for funding children receive upto 30 hours of funding for 48 weeks of the year.
This is normally allocated as 20 hours during term time, 30 hours on 9 weeks weeks worth of holidays. Of these hours term hours, 12.5 hours are allocated to use in School settings.
Caerleon, we are open for 51 weeks per year. This is what we refer to as All Year Around. Generally, as an ‘All Year Around Setting’, the majority off our booking patterns attend the setting throughout the entire year. To uncomplicate the funding applied, we stretch the funding received to become 18 hours per week for all 51 weeks a year.
We do, however, have a limited number of Term Time Only booking patterns on offer.
If you choose to attend Term Time only, your 17.50 hours are applied whole to the 38 weeks of the term. You then take holidays and Inset days at the same time as Coed Glas Primary School. You can use the remaining 9 weeks holiday weeks of 30 hours subject to availability during the holidays.
Funding Rules and How We Apply Funding
We are only allowed to apply a maximum of 10 hours per Day in funding. If your child is attending a 10.5 hours day, the additional 30 minutes will be charged at our hourly rate (currently £7.30 ph).
We apply funding to the first days of the booking pattern.
Any hours left over carry on to the remaining days. However, in some circumstances it is more cost effective for parents that we charge our day rate than apply the funding. We will apply your funding in a way to best reduce your weekly cost.
Funded sessions do not include food. Our food is charged as follows:
o Morning (Breakfast; Snack; Lunch and Dessert) £5.00
o Afternoon (Snack, Tea and Dessert) £3.50
o All Day (Breakfast; Snack; Lunch and Dessert; Snack, Tea and Dessert) £8.50
Tax Free Childcare
You can get up to £500 every 3 months (up to £2,000 a year) for each of your children to help with the costs of childcare. This goes up to £1,000 every 3 months if a child is disabled (up to £4,000 a year). If you’ve already registered, you can sign in to your childcare account.
If you get Tax-Free Childcare, you’ll set up an online childcare account for your child. For every £8 you pay into this account, the government will pay in £2 to use to pay your provider.
You can get Tax-Free Childcare at the same time as 15 or 30 hours free childcare if you’re eligible for both.
To find out more follow: https://www.gov.uk/tax-free-childcare
Universal Credit
You may be able to claim back up to 85% of your childcare costs if you’re eligible for Universal Credit.
You (and your partner if you live with them) will usually need to either:
· be working – it does not matter how many hours you or your partner work
· have a job offer
How much you’ll get
The most you can get back each month is:
· £1,014.63 for one child
· £1,739.37 for 2 or more children