Parents - changes coming to government childcare contributions

[Rilot]

This is a complete mess up on the part of the government. We had the same issue and have had it confirmed by both voucher schemes that my wife and I are a part of, that there is no requirement to stop the vouchers.
They told me that the only way to do it was to enroll in the government savings scheme but just not to put any money in there. That gets you past the gatekeeper.
That was 3 months ago that I had the issue. It would appear that the issue is still there despite thousands of people complaining about it.

 

[SpeedFreak]

Just having the same issue, AFAIK there shouldnt be an issue with childcare vouchers and 30 free hours as it wasnt mentioned when i first took them out. Interestingly ive not had a reminder to reconfirm yet logging on to the government website says i should have done this by 11th feb. This system seems somewhat flawed. Reading that like say 'You can get 30 hours free childcare at the same time as claiming Universal Credit, tax credits or childcare vouchers', but i cant see anyway of reconfirming without saying that ive stopped the vouchers.

For me it seemed to be a temporary issue and our voucher provider confirmed that we were eligible for both. I was able to re-confirm successfully a few days later when HMRC appeared to have updated the website. Odd that you still have the same issue I faced???

 

[theone8181]

I managed to do it by saying id stopped the vouchers, then changing my answer when the summary page came up. I cant believe its still not working correctly.

 

[a1ex2001]

I managed to do it by saying id stopped the vouchers, then changing my answer when the summary page came up. I cant believe its still not working correctly.

I have done this twice now as recommended by the 'helpline' operator I have yet to use the system and not have an issue with it and a lot of it seems to be realy basic IT faults that could be fixed relatively quickly by some decent dev's.

 

[Freakbro]

That's ridiculous.

I've had some parents with some other problems, but I've not heard anyone complaining of that.

One thing I would advise though, is to reconfirm even if your grace period is 31st Aug 2018 (some of our parents see that and don't bother). So even though technically you will still get the 30hrs from your current setting, if you move settings and haven't reconfirmed then the grace period doesn't apply to the new setting and you will lose your eligibility

That's as far as I understand it from an information update from our local council.

 

[Rilot]

It's such an ill thought out system. I found it pretty difficult to work out how to do everything and I'm usually pretty good with this sort of thing. It's almost as if they are making it deliberately obtuse.

 

[Freakbro]

It's almost as if they are making it deliberately obtuse.

Nooooo....they wouldn't that!

Have you seen I, Daniel Blake?

 

[Participant]

Has anyone had an issue reconfirming eligibility? I tried and part of the process now prevents you from reconfirming if you are also receiving childcare vouchers. On this basis I cancelled my vouchers but upon further investigation there is conflicting information on the HMRC site.

https://childcare-support.tax.service.gov.uk/par/app/extendedentitlement

Does anyone know what the situation is?

Looks like others have already cleared this up, but for info my provider states the following on their website:

Parents that are using care-4 or employer supported childcare vouchers, have reported problems when reconfirming their eligibility for 30 hours free childcare:-

While it is perfectly acceptable for families to use care-4 alongside 30 hours free childcare, the HMRC Childcare Service incorrectly indicates that the household must stop using childcare vouchers before continuing to be eligible for the 30 hours free childcare. This is not the case and in order to ensure that you do not lose out on the support that your are entitled, HMRC have confirmed that you should use the following work around:-

1. If you are reconfirming details and asked about childcare vouchers you should initially indicate ‘Yes’ you have stopped using Childcare Vouchers.
2. The next screen shows a summary of your details. You can then edit and correct your details in this screen to indicate that you are continuing to use Childcare vouchers.

This will then allow the reconfirmation of eligibility for 30 hours free childcare alongside continuing usage of your care-4 benefit.