Childcare: Tax Allowances
(asked on 29th November 2022) - View Source
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what data his Department holds on the take up of tax-free childcare in each of the last five years; and what steps he is taking to increase its take up.
The figures for open and used accounts for Tax-Free Childcare are published in Official Statistics. The latest release in November 2022 relates to figures up to September 2022 and are provided in the table below.
Number of: (1000s) | Financial Year | ||||
2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | |
Children with Open Accounts* | 314 | 537 | 768 | 901 | 1,093 |
Children with Used Accounts* | 72 | 203 | 396 | 462 | 647 |
Families with Open Accounts | 272 | 449 | 615 | 697 | 816 |
Families with Used Accounts | 57 | 160 | 315 | 374 | 512 |
* This refers to the number of children for whom accounts are open/used. A used account is one where a payment has been made to a childcare provider within the financial year. An open account is one where a family has met the eligibility criteria and may or may not have made a payment. This shows that in 2021-22 approximately 512,000 families used Tax-Free Childcare for 647,000 children
The Government is committed to supporting families with their childcare costs, including through Tax-Free Childcare (TFC). In July this year, we launched a £1.2 million communications campaign to help parents to access childcare support. This includes adverts through a variety of media channels, online, radio, television, newspaper and billboards. Additionally, we have worked with childcare providers at local levels to help parents better understand the support that is available to them.