Guide discussion: Grandparents childcare credit

magpie

My daughter has had a baby and will be getting statutory maternity pay after 6 months. As I still look after her older child, will I be able to claim the NI credit from her SMP. She does receive child benefit. Does SMP include NI credit. Thanks

Kynthia

magpie said:

My daughter has had a baby and will be getting statutory maternity pay after 6 months. As I still look after her older child, will I be able to claim the NI credit from her SMP. She does receive child benefit. Does SMP include NI credit. Thanks

Your daughter can only transfer her child benefit NI credits to you if she already qualifies for a full year of NI through other means.

It's best to apply after the tax year has ended and she can see whether she was paid enough salary/smp to get a full qualifying year for NI.

molerat

It's best to apply after the tax year has ended

You can only apply from 31 October after the tax year has ended anyway.

Welshtopper

We look after our son’s daughter once a week and have successfully claimed the NIC Credit for my wife for 2021-22 and 2022-23 by submitting Form CA9176 however this year the form has changed which is making the filling in of the form nearly impossible. They have removed the tick box asking whether you’ve looked after the child for the whole year and also you can now only put 10 Care Periods into the form,which is insufficient for us as we need to enter 48 Mondays due to my son and his family taking holidays etc. I spoke to the helpline and they suggested filling out the form, printing it out then return to the form, change the dates to the next 10 Care Periods, print out the relevant pages and repeat. I pointed out to them that this would mean that they would have four Care Period 1, four Care Period 2s etc. but they said it wouldn’t matter as they just look at the dates. I tried to do this but The Care Period 1 date comes at the end of the 2nd page so it is pretty impossible to print out the correct dates, has anybody else found this problem? I also tried to do it in Welsh as this was the last change just in case it allowed you to enter more than 10 Care Periods but it doesn’t unfortunately. It now seems as we don’t have a printer that I’ll have to fill in the form at my son’s house, print out the relevant pages, edit the form, print again etc. I’ve tried to enter the forms on my IPad and PC with no success, any help gratefully received as my wife starts her pension in January 2025. Thanks

molerat

Surely a care period is as it has always been and covers multiple weeks, how many blocks of weeks do you actually need ?

canary2211

Is anyone able to comment on current processing times at DWP?  We have clamed for 22/23 and 23/24 SAC's and had letter from HMRC confirmed entitlement to the credits.  That was confirmed within three weeks (well done HMRC). 

 I gather, from other posts and sources:

1) this acceptance triggers processing by DWP to add credit to the NI record, and amend the state pensions payment. ie the HMRC letter is insufficient on its own. 

2) in 2022-24 this processing was taking 6 to 12 months

3) the increase in the state pension will be back dated to some earlier date - I assume date of HMRC letter, possibly to date of claim.

Have I got this right please?  And how long are current processing delays - I want to make a diary note of when I should start phoning to chase.

Thanks in advance

molerat

If you are past state pension age then I believe they are still in the around a year timescale.  It also seems that, as well as taking on new staff for these projects, many current experienced staff are being diverted to sort out other problems such as the mass influx of PC claims.  Timescales are certainly not going to get any shorter in the foreseeable future.

Stringybob3

My wife currently works full time and has brought forward her planned retirement by one year as we have found out we're going to be grandparents (woo-hoo/aaaarggg!), so that she can look after the grandchild when our daughter and her partner return to work. The plan now is to retire in August 2026, when she will be 56yrs old. 
Just checking her state pension forecast, and up to April 2024, she requires 4 further years to get the full SP. That means that when she retires, she will still be one year short. Am I correct in thinking that to obtain the 'missing' year, she will need to make one single application (at some point prior to her SP age) for Grandparent Child Credit? 
Thanks

Sarahspangles

Stringybob3 said:

My wife currently works full time and has brought forward her planned retirement by one year as we have found out we're going to be grandparents (woo-hoo/aaaarggg!), so that she can look after the grandchild when our daughter and her partner return to work. The plan now is to retire in August 2026, when she will be 56yrs old. 
Just checking her state pension forecast, and up to April 2024, she requires 4 further years to get the full SP. That means that when she retires, she will still be one year short. Am I correct in thinking that to obtain the 'missing' year, she will need to make one single application (at some point prior to her SP age) for Grandparent Child Credit? 
Thanks

So 2024/25 and 2025/2026 are full years. Will she have contributed enough by August 2026 for a full year?

Stringybob3

She will have earned approx £25k from April to the end of August