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Childcare costs within Pension Credit….
...I’m not seeing any, is this right?
I have a client who is about to start a claim for UC with less than a year to go before her pension age but she is hopeful that she will find employment again and but need to utilise childcare and UC will help with the cost of this.
However, she does not just want to stop working when she reaches her pension age but with UC ending at that point and no obvious way of reclaiming childcare costs through Pension Credit do claimants have a choice?
No childcare help in PC. This is a consequence of the removal of in-work support from those over state pension age. I wrote about it when UC was first drafted and it excluded pensioners. As UC was (is) to become the only source of in-work support, even though PC rates are much higher, it’s possible to be worse off.
Yes, we raised this with DWP when they switched off new WTC claims and they weren’t especially bothered as they said it only affects a few thousand people (which in my humble opinion is a few thousand too many(.
I don’t think there’s a parental upper age limit for tax free childcare, might be worth checking if that provides anything
https://www.gov.uk/tax-free-childcare