Your child will be entitled to funded hours from the funding period (term) after both of the following conditions are satisfied:

• Your child has reached the age of 9 months
• You have a current confirmation of eligibility from HMRC

The eligibility criteria can be viewed on the Eligibility | Best Start in Life website.

Your immigration status

To be eligible for funded childcare for working parents, you (and your partner if you have one and if they live with you) must have a National Insurance number.

The person who applies must also have at least one of the following:

• British or Irish citizenship
• settled or pre-settled status, or you have applied and you’re waiting for a decision
• permission to access public funds - your UK residence card will tell you if you cannot do this

If you are not currently working

You may still be eligible if your partner is working, and you are on carer’s leave or if you get any of the following:

• Incapacity Benefit
• Severe Disablement Allowance
• Carer’s Allowance
• Limited Capability for Work Benefit
• contribution-based Employment and Support Allowance

You can apply for your eligibility code on the How to apply | Best Start in Life website.

If the application is approved, parents will be given an 11-digit code by HMRC via the Childcare Service.

You must reconfirm your eligibility every 3 months even if you haven't started claiming.

You can apply for your code up to 16 weeks before your baby turns 9 months old.

You must apply for your eligibility code the term before you wish to claim your child’s place. The deadline is the day before a new term begins, but we encourage you to apply earlier and recommend applying at least 6 weeks before the deadline. Some providers may ask for codes before the deadline, so we recommend you speak to your provider to find out if this is the case. This code must be given to your childcare provider.

To apply, you will need to start your application as normal. If it is more than 31 days before the date on which you are starting work, you will then need to call HMRC’s childcare service helpline to be guided through the rest of the process to receive your code.

If you are starting work more than one month after the start of term, you will be able to apply to start using the entitlements from the start of the following term.

Can I apply for a code whilst I am on maternity, paternity or adoption leave?

If you are on some form of parental leave and applying for an older child, who is not the subject of the parental leave, you can apply as normal.

You can also apply for the child that is the subject of the parental leave, though when you return to work will affect when you can take up the childcare.

The relevant dates are as follow:

Parents in this situation will need to apply online. Your application may show as ‘pending’ but you will then receive a letter in the post within 1 to 2 weeks, enabling you to access your entitlement.

If one parent is starting or returning to work, while the other parent remains on parental leave until a later date, you will only be eligible to apply once both parents have either returned to work or have a start or return to work date within one month of the start of term (that is, 30 September, 31 January or 30 April).

If you are on paid annual leave and receiving your salary as normal, this counts as having returned to work for the purposes of eligibility for the working parent entitlement.

You have to reconfirm your eligibility every three months. Please check your reconfirmation dates in your account.

Contact the HMRC Childcare Service helpline if you need help with:

• applying for an eligibility code
• using your childcare account

Telephone: 0300 123 4097

Textphone: 0300 123 9232

The phone line opening hours are:

Monday to Friday: 8am to 6pm. Closed on Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays.

You can access a place at a day nursery, pre-school, independent nursery school, school nursery or childminder that is approved to provide early education funding for 2-year-olds. Check the full list of registered providers.

If you can't use all your weekly hours with one provider, you can split your entitlement with a second provider.

Many childcare providers will have specific times of day where they accept government funded hours, so check in advance. Funded hours can be used between 6am and 8pm (subject to availability at your chosen provider - the provider does not have to be open during these hours).

If your child attends a childcare provider outside of your local authority area the funding will be paid by the local authority where your child attends.

If eligible for the 30 hours childcare, the 1140 hours of funded childcare can be taken across the year of entitlement, either in term times only or ‘stretched' across the year for example.

• up to 30 hours per week across 38 weeks per year (term time offer)
• up to 22 hours per week across 51 weeks of the year (‘stretched offer').

You will need to discuss the hours funded daily with your chosen provider to jointly agree the most appropriate length of time in consideration of your child's well-being. The government set the maximum session length of 10 hours per day.

If your child attends more than the allocated funded hours you will be charged for these at the provider’s rate.

Additional services such as meals, snacks and drinks, trips, and extra activities such as music and dance are not covered by the government funding, and your childcare provider may ask you to pay for these.

Providers can charge for the following extras in connection with the free hours:

• Consumables, e.g. nappies, sun cream,
• Meals and snacks
• Extra optional activities, e.g. events, celebrations, specialist tuition (for example music classes or foreign languages) or other activities that are not directly related or necessary for the effective delivery of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework.

Any additional charges associated with funded hours must be optional to parents/carers. All providers offering the funded entitlements must have a policy in place on providing parents with options for alternatives to additional charges. This policy must offer reasonable alternatives that allow parents to access the entitlement for free, including allowing parents to supply their own, or waiving the cost of these items.

At the beginning of each new term, the childcare provider should tell you about any charges that may be incurred, enabling you to make an informed choice as to whether the childcare provider is right for you and your child.

You can split the entitlement between multiple providers, though no more than two sites in one day. You may find that your provider is going to be working in partnership with another to enable you to use the full entitlement.

Once you have chosen your childcare provider, they will explain to you when the early education funding will begin and confirm the availability of places. You will then be asked to complete a parent/carer declaration form signing up to the terms and conditions of the entitlement. Your child's entitlement will not begin without this form. Your child's childcare provider will claim the entitlement on your behalf - you do not need to do anything else.

You should be aware that this document is a legally binding contract and you should read it carefully and discuss any issues with the childcare provider.

Once you have completed a parent/carer declaration form, you have signed up to have your child's entitlement with that provider.

The entitlement will not automatically transfer with your child to a new provider if you decide to move your child, or not begin with a provider you have signed a contract with.

Your provider is entitled to request up to four calendar weeks notice of leaving, please refer to the contract you signed with the provider for further details. They will ask your help to complete a transfer form requesting the transfer of your child's early education funding. This form can be obtained from your childcare provider. If you have a safety, special education need (SEN) or quality reason for leaving and want to let us know directly please get in touch.

It's important that the old provider, you and the new provider all know the remaining hours balance for your child and that any notice due is served. We will confirm the transfer of hours and your new provider will need to let you know accordingly.

Families with a working parent who is on temporary leave from work, such as maternity leave or statutory sick pay, are still considered to be in work and will be eligible for the working families entitlement if they meet all the criteria.

If either or both of the child's parents/carers stop work at any point, after a short ‘grace period’ to support you to find a new job, the child will stop being eligible for the working families entitlement (although children may be able to get the universal entitlement for three and four year olds or funded entitlement for two year olds receiving support). This also applies to other changes to circumstances which affect eligibility. See table below:

Children cannot start a new working parent entitlement place at a provider during the grace period. This includes:

• where a parent falls into their grace period before the child has started a place
• where a parent falls into their grace period whilst their child is in a place, and the parent seeks to move the child to a different provider.

If you are on Universal Credit, you will still be able to claim the working parents entitlement, as long as you meet the eligibility criteria.

This will not affect your ability to claim Universal Credit. If you are taking up additional childcare (on top of your 30 hours entitlement), you can claim Universal Credit Childcare, which can support you with up to 85% of the cost of additional childcare you pay for outside your entitlement to 30 hours. Please see the Universal Credit childcare costs page for more information.

Foster carers may be eligible for the extended entitlement for their own children and also claim the 30 hours childcare for children who they foster, where the foster parent(s) are engaged in paid work outside of their fostering responsibilities. Foster parents should contact their social worker to enquire about this.

When a previously looked-after child has been placed with the prospective adoptive parent(s) but the formal adoption order has not yet been granted by the courts, the parent(s) are no longer considered to be the child’s foster parents.

The adoption agency (i.e. the relevant local authority) must notify the prospective adopter(s) in writing of the date on which the child is placed for adoption with them (this is the adoption placement order).

If they wish to apply for the working parent entitlement, these prospective adopter(s) must then apply through the online Childcare Service rather than via the local authority as they can no longer apply via the foster parent route. If they do not hold the child’s birth certificate, they can provide HMRC with the adoption placement order from the adoption agency during the application process.

As with other parents, they must meet the eligibility criteria for the working parent entitlement, including the minimum income requirement and the requirement to reconfirm via the Childcare Service every 3 months. This remains the same when the adoption order is granted by the court.

Each provider, under the SEND Code of Practice must provide information about how they support children with SEND.

Information can be found on each providers individual service details under the `SEND Local Offer' tab.

Use the Family Information Directory to search for local early years and childcare providers.

If you need help finding childcare or accessing childcare funding, contact the Family Information Service on 01202 126668 (Monday to Thursday: 9am to 5pm, Fridays: 9am to 4.30pm) or email familyinformation@bcpcouncil.gov.uk and we'll be happy to help.