Saving on your fees
There are 4 possible schemes that can help parents with childcare fees. These are:
1. WORKPLACE Q SCHEME
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2. WORKING TAX CREDIT
Families who send there child to a Q Day Nursery are potentially entitled to reclaim some childcare costs back through Working Tax Credit. Your eligibility ultimately depends upon income.
The basic entitlement rules are as follows:
- If you are a one-parent household you must work 16 hours or more. If you a 2 parent household both of you must work at least 16 hours, unless one of you is incapacitated, in hospital or in prison.
- The maximum childcare costs taken into account are £175 a week for one child or £300 a week for more than one child
- The maximum award is 80% of what you pay or 80% of the maximum childcare costs, whichever is the lower. This means that the most help that you can get is £140 a week for one child or £240 a week for 2 or more children.
- If you use childcare vouchers take the amount of the vouchers away from your total costs of childcare when calculating the cost of childcare for Working Tax Credit purposes. In addition you childcare vouchers will not be classed as income.
3. CHILDCARE GRANTS
The government has made grant funding available to support your child's pre-school education.
The grant provides for up to 5 sessions per week per 11 week term. Each session amounts to 2 ½ hours.
When does your child get the grant?
Your child will receive the grant in the term following his/her third birthday. Term dates are as follows:
1st September - 31st December
1st January - 31st March
1st April - 31st August
What do I do next to receive the grant?
You need to telephone your local council and ask them to send you a Nursery Education Grant Form. Once this is completed hand it in to your nursery manager along with your child's birth certificate and we will do the rest for you.
Important Note:
- The grant will only pay for 2 ½ hours of each session, you will be required to pay for the rest of the session
- The grant is paid directly to us and we deduct this from your fees
4. CHILDCARE VOUCHERS
The Childcare Voucher Scheme enables you to take part of your salary in childcare vouchers rather than cash.
The benefit of the above is that you do not pay Tax or National Insurance contributions on the part of your salary that you take in vouchers. This therefore results in a significant saving.
To participate in the Childcare Voucher Scheme you will need to ascertain if your employer is already associated with one of the current voucher providers. These are currently:
- Accor Services
- Leapfrog
- Sodexho
- Busy Bees
- Kidsunlimited