CCM6275 - Particular Aspects: Child Care - Where Child Care is provided

If you discover that the provider has occasionally cared for the child(ren) in the claimant’s home, to meet a particular need, you should not refuse the claim on that account, as long as the normal place of care is the provider’s premises.

Claimants may be eligible for the child care element for charges they pay for formal child care in their own homes only where:

• the child care provider is approved under the Tax Credits (Approval of Child Care Providers) Scheme 2003 (a scheme for approving home-based childcare in England), or
• the child care provider is approved in accordance with the Tax Credits (Approval of Child Care Providers) Scheme 2005 (the Childcare Approval Scheme) or
• from April 2006 the child care provider is approved under the Tax Credits (Approval of Home Child Care Providers) Scheme in Northern Ireland or
• from April 2007 the child care provider is approved under the Tax Credits (Approval of Child Care Providers) Scheme in Wales
• the child care provider is a domiciliary care worker under the Domiciliary Care Agencies Regulations 2002, or the Domiciliary Care Agencies (Wales) Regulations 2004 or
• the home child carer is provided by childcare agencies, including sitter services and nanny agencies, who are required to be registered by Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care - in Scotland; and
• the provider is not a relative (that is a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle, or brother or sister, whether by blood, half blood, marriage, civil partnership or affinity).

If you have doubts about where the child care is provided, the best way to satisfy your concerns may be to meet the child care provider at their home (or other premises). You should suggest this to the claimant(s) and provider in appropriate cases; but remember that you cannot insist on holding the meeting in the provider’s (or claimant’s) home.

If a meeting is not possible, or if doubts still remain after a meeting, you should ask the provider to supply the report of the registering authority’s visit to their premises. This will contain a description of the premises and an assessment of its suitability for child care provision. If such a report exists, you should normally accept that the child care takes place in the provider’s home.