Wednesday 14-08-2019 - 10:34

For the 19/20 Academic Year, Student Finance England have a new way of calculating and paying your Childcare Grant. The grant will no longer be paid to you so you will see a decrease in the amount of money you receive in your pocket. The Childcare Grant is now worked out as an annual maximum amount (which is means tested) which is paid to a third party (the Child Care Grant Payment Service (CCGPS)).

You and your Childcare Provider will no longer have to complete CCG1 and CCG2 forms. Instead, Childcare providers will have to bill the CCGPS for the full am amount on a weekly basis. Childcare Providers can choose to bill for multiple weeks at a time (i.e. once a month) – check with your provider how they will choose to do this. This bill is then presented to the student for approval. It will be split into 85% (subject to a weekly cap) which the CCGPS will pay out of your Childcare Grant and 15% (plus any amount above the weekly cap) that you will have to pay yourself. 

Any left-over money at the end of the year will be paid back to Student Finance England – not the student or the childcare provider.

Childcare providers have to be registered. The CCGPS is well used in other government childcare payment schemes and many providers will probably be registered with them already. SFE are also reaching out to providers it knows about to inform them of the changes, but it may be helpful for you to check with your provider.

A key problem we are worried about is budgeting. If you do not receive the full amount of Childcare Grant (for example, you have a partner who is working) but you still have a large amount of Childcare, you could run out of Childcare Grant part way through the year and be expected to pay the full childcare from then on. For example (figures are approximate):

Student A has one child and is charged £200/week for childcare. 85% of this is £170 (this is about the maximum SFE will pay). Student A’s partner earns about £14,000.
SFE calculate the maximum grant: £170 * 52 = £8,840.

They then means test it and this leaves approximately £4,420 which will be passed to the CCGPS.

The Childcare provider will bill £200/week and get paid £170/week. The student pays £30/week. However, this will exhaust the Childcare Grant award in 26 weeks after which Student A will have to pay the full £200/week. 

N.B. If the Childcare was only actually £100/week, the same Childcare maximum award and means test would happen giving the same £4,420 budget. This would then be able to last all 52 weeks and the student would consistently be paying £15/week.

If you would like to know more about these changes or to discuss any other aspect of your student funding, please contact The Advice Centre.