Providers claim a payment from the Childcare Offer for Wales

Sign in to the digital service at providers sign in to your Childcare Offer for Wales account and find the Claims link via the provider/setting dashboard to see a list of weekly timesheets.

All weekly timesheets will be listed on the Monday of each week, in date order, with the most recent first.

Timesheets display the children’s names in alphabetical order alongside the parent or guardian’s name, the agreement hours, Booked hours and actual attended hours.

The type of claim for each child will be specified as either term time or holiday time.

The agreement hours refers to the maximum number of funded hours a parent would require in any week, as agreed in the parent/setting agreement. This provides flexibility should the parent wish to book a varying amount of hours from week to week.

The setting may then claim for the varying hours booked with them, up to the maximum value as set out in the agreement.

Hours to be booked from week to week should be discussed with the setting.

On the timesheet, the setting will input the booked hours, followed by the number of hours that were actually attended for each week. 

The setting will be paid on the Booked hours.

The setting is required to input Actual Offer hours attended for reporting purposes. These do not include any childcare hours arranged and paid for privately, i.e. not funded by the Offer.

If there are frequent instances of Actual Offer hours being lower than the Booked hours, the local authority may request that the setting discusses reducing the number of Booked hours.

The overall total of the Childcare Offer claimed per week is automatically calculated and the setting can review this and edit/amend before they submit. Once submitted, the claim can no longer be edited.

The setting can also save and exit if they need to gather further information before submitting the claim.

The system will generate weekly timesheets, and these are available for the setting to review and submit from 12:00 every Friday.

Timesheets may be submitted weekly or may be submitted in batches, up to a maximum of two months’ worth of timesheets.

Parents will receive an email when a claim is submitted advising them to sign in to see the hours claimed in a given week.

On successful submission of a timesheet/claim, a unique claim reference number will be generated.  

Please note that when a setting submits a claim, the status will change to ‘Submitted’. Once Welsh Government have sent the payment, the status will show as ‘Approved’.

The remittance advice will be sent via email and will include the Childcare Offer setting number, the claim reference number, total amount paid for that week and date paid.

Please note that remittance advice will be sent to the email address noted in setting contact details when the setting was registered. Settings should consider whether the remittance advice should be shared with any other staff within their organisation, for example an accounts department.

This would be rejected by the system as Booked hours cannot be greater than the Agreement hours.  In this case, an error message will display to allow you to edit the amount, otherwise the inacceptable amount will be cleared from the timesheet.

If a parent’s circumstances change and they become ineligible for the Offer they will enter a Temporary Exemption Period (TEP).

A TEP usually lasts for a period of eight weeks. During this time the parent can still access government-funded childcare and you will be able to submit claims for the child.

When a parent enters a TEP you will be notified by email and their status will change on your dashboard. The system will also notify you of the date the TEP comes to an end. From that date you will no longer be able to submit claims for that child and the child will not appear on any future time sheets.

If a parent becomes eligible for the Offer during a TEP they should submit updated evidence via the Childcare Offer for Wales service. The local authority will assess the evidence and confirm whether they are eligible. Upon confirmation of eligibility the parent's TEP status will be removed and you can continue to submit claims until the end date of their Agreement.

The Offer can be used for up to 9 weeks of school holidays. This means there are 4 holiday weeks a year that are not covered by the Offer and which parents will need to fund themselves if they wish to receive childcare.

The setting will be able to see the holiday weeks remaining for each child by viewing any claim. The holidays remaining for each child will be shown in real time. This is subject to change and is dependent on claims being submitted. If a parent accesses funded hours during the holidays in another setting, this figure could reduce when the provider submits the holiday claim.

When a parent does not wish to book funded childcare during a particular school holiday week (but chooses to self-fund) then the setting should input 0 in the booked hours that week for the child in question. The system will then mark this school holiday week as not claimed and it will therefore become one of the parent’s 4 non-funded holiday weeks per year. The holiday week remaining balance will then remain unchanged.

When a parent has used all their holiday weeks funding, they will appear at the bottom of the claim sheet and you will not be able to claim for them during that holiday week. Parents will need to self fund these.

Parent uses more than one setting

Parents may use their Childcare Offer hours in up to two settings during term time and a further two settings during holiday.

Where the parent is using two settings, they may book with:

• both settings (based on hours shared across their agreements)
• one setting only
• neither setting

Each setting will claim for the hours booked. If the hours are not booked with them, they must input '0'.

Holiday week credits and multiple settings

If at least one setting has claimed for holiday week hours then holiday credits will be reduced.

Any childcare hours that are over and above those the parent is entitled to under the Childcare Offer for Wales must be arranged outside the Childcare Offer for Wales national digital service. Those hours are not to be documented on the Booked and Actual columns.