How and when are Childcare Allowance (CCA) payments made?

If you're a postgraduate course student and awarded Childcare Allowance (CCA), it will be paid termly in three instalments.

The payment amounts will be based on the amounts claimed within each of the terms.

This means you may not receive three equal payments over the course of the academic year, you may be paid more or less each term depending on how much you claimed per term.
 
If your CCA entitlement has been reduced due to the income assessment we'll reduce your term payments, beginning with term 3.

If the term 3 entitlement amount doesn't cover the full income assessed contribution, your term 2 and then possibly term 1 entitlements would also be reduced accordingly.

For example, you may receive your full CCA entitlement during terms 1 and 2, but only part of term 3 due to the income assessed reduction.
 
Your very first CCA instalment will be paid along with your first main bursary payment if they were applied for and assessed at the same time.

If not, this will generally be paid within 10 working days of the CCA assessment assuming we've already received both confirmation of your course attendance and allocated bursary place from your university / college.
 
Any future CCA instalments will generally be paid slightly later than your main bursary payment as we need to verify the previous term costs first.

This is done by asking you to fill in a Childcare Reconciliation form.
 
Once we've received and processed confirmation of your costs from your provider, your next CCA term payment will be made within 10 working days.

If your estimated childcare costs in the previous term exceeded your actual costs by £500 or more all future payments of CCA will be withheld until you've submitted a new application showing revised estimated costs for remaining terms.

Provisional assessment
 
If your entitlement to CCA was calculated using estimated income, your award will be provisional and the third instalment will remain on hold until the required income evidence is received and processed by us.
 
Your entitlement will be recalculated or finalised once you send evidence of the actual income received.

If the actual income is different to the estimated income, the amount of CCA you're entitled to may change.
 
If you've received a provisional bursary assessment, your Notification of Award will confirm what evidence we require to finalise your award.