[2025] UKUT 166 (AAC)

The TFC scheme was introduced by the 2014 Act and aimed to provide financial support to help working families with the cost of childcare. It also sought to assist those with responsibility for children to take up paid work or to increase their paid work when they may have been previously deterred from doing so owing to the cost of childcare.

Under the TFC scheme, the Government makes a top-up payment of £2 for every £8 paid towards childcare, up to a maximum of £2,000 per child, per year (£4,000 if the child is disabled). Those payments are made into a so-called “childcare account”. A person is required to make a declaration of eligibility when first applying to open a childcare account. Further declarations must then be made thereafter (known as reconfirming declarations) to reconfirm entitlement to support, see s.17(1) and (2).