the times | Saturday April 9 2022 63
Money
that you will need a Government Gate-
way ID and password, which can be
posted to you if you do not have one or
cannot remember it. But be careful: you
must sign in every three months and
confirm that your details are up to date
— a complexity that some believe is
contributing to low take-up.0 Negotiate flexible working
Since the pandemic, many parents are
finding employers are more amenable
to home-working or flexible-working
arrangements, which make it easier to
pick up or drop off your children — and,
conceivably, put them into childcare for
fewer hours. By law, you have the right
to make a flexible working request if
you have worked for your employer for
at least 26 weeks, you are legally classed
as an employee and you have not made
any other flexible working request in
the past 12 months.
However, employers have no re-
quirement to grant that request.0 Claim child benefit
You can get £21.15 per week for your first
child and £14 per week for any children
after that.
However, since 2013 the benefit has
been capped so households where one
earner makes more than £50,000 start
to lose some entitlement. If they earn
£60,000 the family get nothing.
The system is fiddly and if you get it
wrong you could end up owing HMRC
a whopping bill.
It can be worth signing up for child
benefit even if you are not entitled to it
because signing up will earn you
national insurance credits that will be
important for your state pension if you
are not working. If so, you should regis-
ter for it then not claim the money —
jumping through this hoop will mean
that you can still claim the credits.for a child aged under two is £138.70 —
up slightly from £137.69 last year.
The most expensive region is inner
London, where the average cost is
£183.56 a week, but in the cheapest
region, Scotland, it is £108.62. And
childcare availability has fallen, with
57 per cent of local authorities report-
ing that they have enough childcare
places, down from 72 per cent in 2021.
The best way to find childcare near
you and compare prices is to use the
Coram Family and Childcare finder
tool at familyandchildcaretrust.org.0 Navigate tax-free childcare
There is an alternative to simply cough-
ing up for nursery fees if your child is
under three — but the vast majority of
eligible people have never heard of it.
The UK-wide tax-free childcare
scheme, which since October 2018 has
been the successor to the government’s
childcare vouchers, gives parents of
children aged up to 11 a maximum of
£2,000 per child each year that they can
use towards nursery, childminder and
Ofsted-registered nanny costs.
For every £8 you pay into the scheme,
the government pays £2 on top — equal
to basic-rate tax relief.
The eligibility criteria are the same as
for 30 free hours: both parents must
earn at least minimum wage for
16 hours a week and neither must earn
above £100,000. It can be used in addi-
tion to the free hours.
According to a study for HM Reve-
nue & Customs, take-up of this scheme
is low. About 316,000 parents had an ac-
tive tax-free childcare account in Sep-
tember last year — about a quarter of
those eligible for help. HMRC believes
families may unwittingly be missing out
on about £2.8 billion in state help.
To enter the scheme you need to
create an account on gov.uk and foraged two and under released last
month by the campaigning charity Co-
ram Family and Childcare found that
prices fluctuate wildly depending on
where you live and the density of the
local population. It found that the aver-
age cost of nursery for 25 hours a weekyour two-year-old because you’re on
benefits, your children have a state-
ment of special educational needs or
are looked after by a local authority.
Otherwise, you do not get any free
hours until your child turns three.
A survey of nursery costs for childrenHowever, working parents in Northern
Ireland can still use the tax-free child-
care system, which is UK-wide.
0 Negotiate the nursery landscape for
toddlers
You may be offered 15 free hours for
Emma Cornell, 30, from
Manchester, was a nurse
working in the NHS.
She went on maternity
leave in August 2019
after the birth of her
daughter, Arabella.
When she returned to
work a year later, she
was doing three days a
week, earning £1,280 a
month — but £1,000
went to her daughter’s
nursery. Her partner was
not able to help because
he frequently travelled
for his job, so she felt
there was no point in her
continuing to work.
Cornell will not be
entitled to free hours
from the government
until February.
“The reality is I could
not afford to have any
more children, and that’s
a heavy burden,” said
Cornell, who also has ason, 11, who goes to a
local primary school.
“The big problem is
the gap between when
my maternity leave
ended and when
Arabella became
entitled to free hours —
and that’s what I hear
from so many of my
friends. For me, it made
continuing in my
previous career
impossible — and that
was working in the NHS,
for goodness sake.
“My partner is a
higher-rate taxpayer so
we don’t struggle
anywhere near as much
as many people. But the
lack of flexibility of my
old workplace, and the
cost, meant that I was
working and becoming
incredibly stressed and
I was financially just
about standing still.”‘Cost of care made
working for the
NHS impossible’