Help with fees

Free places for three and four year olds

All three and four year olds are entitled to Early Years funded sessions through the Nursery Education Grant. Funding is available and generally starts in the term after your child’s 3rd birthday. This will mean a reduction in your monthly payments. Please speak to your nursery manager for more details. Further information can be obtained by contacting your Bury’s Children’s Information Service on 0161253 6977.

Child Tax Credit

The Child Tax Credit is available to families who have an income of up to £58,000 per year. Nine out of ten families are eligible for this tax credit and it is paid in addition to Child Benefit. There is also a higher payment available for families with at least one child under one year old (the baby element) and for families with children that have a disability.

Working Tax Credit

The Working Tax Credit provides extra help to those parents in lower paid work with dependent children if they work at least 16 hours a week. The childcare element of the Working Tax Credit can pay up to 70% of the cost of registered childcare up to a maximum of £135 per week for 1 child and £200 for 2 or more. For any enquiries regarding tax credits, please contact the tax credit help line on 0845 300 3900he tax credit help line on 0845 300 3900.

Help from employers

Employers may offer help with childcare by using childcare vouchers, which can give a huge saving on your tax and National Insurance contributions. Talk to your employer about the support that is available. If they are not currently registered with a voucher company, there are several voucher companies that we recommend.

Childcare Vouchers

From April 2005 huge savings can be made against childcare costs by paying for your childcare in vouchers which are provided by your employer. Using vouchers up to the value of £55.00 per week parents can save on tax and NI contributions.

If you are a standard rate taxpayer you will save £916.00 per year if you elect to use childcare vouchers. If you are a higher rate taxpayer you will save £1,195.00 per year. These savings can be per parent and hence two parents paying for our services by childcare vouchers can save up o £2,390.00 per year in childcare costs!

To make this saving your employer needs to be pay part of your salary to you by way of childcare vouchers which are redeemable against the cost of the childcare that you normally have to pay for. We work in partnership with several childcare voucher providers.

Put quite simply once your employer has agreed that you may take part of your salary in this way we will co-ordinate all of the necessary work, direct with your employer to ensure that you can take full advantage of these huge savings. The added benefit is that this can apply to any size of employer – in fact if you are running your own business you can still gain from this benefit.

The final benefit is that once your employer has set up a voucher scheme, they will also save money on the National Insurance contributions that they would otherwise have paid on your salary and hence all should be very happy.