| answer text |
<p>The Government is committed to supporting parents with moving into work and, as
part of this, we increased the level of support for childcare costs from 70 per cent
in legacy benefits to up to 85 per cent in Universal Credit (UC). The UC childcare
policy aligns with the wider government childcare offer, which includes free childcare
hours and tax free childcare and UC claimants can utilise both the free childcare
entitlement and UC childcare costs in conjunction with each other for relevant hours.
This offer means that reasonable childcare costs should not form a barrier to work.</p><p>
</p><p>The UC childcare policy aligns with the wider government childcare offer, which
includes free childcare hours and tax free childcare and UC claimants can utilise
both the free childcare entitlement and UC childcare costs in conjunction with each
other for relevant hours. This offer means that reasonable childcare costs should
not form a barrier to work.</p><p> </p><p>Beyond the UC childcare element, claimants
can be considered for two additional methods of funding childcare costs: the Flexible
Support Fund (FSF) and Budgeting Advances.</p><p> </p><p>Work Coaches can support
individual claimants with barriers that may prevent them from moving into employment.
Each case is considered carefully on its own merits with financial help available
to eligible claimants in advance for childcare. Where agreed, FSF will pay 100% of
the upfront childcare costs up to the payment limits set that the claimant incurs
between starting work and receiving their first wage.</p><p> </p><p>A budgeting advance
is available for one-off urgent financial events for eligible UC claimants, such as
upfront childcare, and is repayable over a period of up to 12 monthly instalments.
Only one Budgeting Advance will be paid at a time and further advances will be unavailable
until the balance of the previous Budgeting Advance is cleared.</p>
|
|
