Help with Childcare Costs - Help with Childcare Costs when Starting Work or Looking for Jobs

England, Scotland and Wales

If you are looking for work, you may be able to get help with some expenses, for example, to enable you to attend interviews, through a discretionary Jobcentre fund called the Flexible Support Fund.

Help with childcare costs through Universal Credit is paid to you, not to your childcare provider, and it is only paid to you after you have had to pay your childcare provider. This can make it hard for people when they start a new job.

If you're moving into work, you may be able to get help with childcare costs upfront. You should ask your work coach to find out if you're eligible through your Universal Credit claim or the Flexible Support Fund. If you're not eligible, you may have to ask for an advance.

Ask your local Jobcentre for more information about this and any other schemes they may run to help you into work.

Northern Ireland

If you are looking for work, you may be able to get help with some expenses, for example, to enable you to attend interviews, through a discretionary fund called the Advisor Discretionary Fund.

You can get help with your first month's childcare costs from the Advisor Discretionary Fund. This will be paid as a grant that you don't have to pay back. You can then reclaim the first month's childcare costs from your Universal Credit and use that money to pay the next month's childcare costs.