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Are you assigned to a location within the European Economic Area & Switzerland (EEA&S) or using Defence Children Services (DCS) before and after school childcare provision? WAC Overseas will be available to eligible families in these areas from 6 January 2025.
What is Wraparound Childcare funding?
The Wraparound Childcare (WAC) scheme provides funding for up to 20 hours per week, per child, during term time, to eligible Service families with children aged 4 to 11 years old (4-16 years old if receiving Government disability allowances) who are in full time education in school or being home educated. Over 7,000 Service children's before and after school childcare is currently being funded by WAC.
Temporary registration and claims process for WAC Overseas.
A temporary process will be in place from January until at least April 2025. Due to the migration of JPA to the Cloud it is not possible for WAC Overseas registrations and claims to be added to the WAC area of JPA straight away. The temporary process has been put in place to enable eligible families to claim WAC Overseas funding while this migration work takes place. Once JPA migration to the Cloud is complete, there will be a requirement to re-register to continue to submit claims, via JPA in the future. Further guidance documents will be available on the Defence Childcare Information Page on DefNet and Defence Connect in January.
What is Wraparound Childcare funding?
The Wraparound Childcare (WAC) scheme provides funding for up to 20 hours per week, per child, during term time, to eligible Service families with children aged 4 to 11 years old (4-16 years old if receiving Government disability allowances) who are in full time education in school or being home educated. Over 7,000 Service children's before and after school childcare is currently being funded by WAC.
Temporary registration and claims process for WAC Overseas.
A temporary process will be in place from January until at least April 2025. Due to the migration of JPA to the Cloud it is not possible for WAC Overseas registrations and claims to be added to the WAC area of JPA straight away. The temporary process has been put in place to enable eligible families to claim WAC Overseas funding while this migration work takes place. Once JPA migration to the Cloud is complete, there will be a requirement to re-register to continue to submit claims, via JPA in the future. Further guidance documents will be available on the Defence Childcare Information Page on DefNet and Defence Connect in January.
- Make sure each child, that funding will be claimed for, have an active Tax-Free Childcare (TFC) account (active means that you reconfirm your account with HMRC every 3 months and receive the 20% top up from HMRC when you add money into the TFC account).
- Check children have been recorded and verified on JPA, children are verified on JPA when there is a ‘yes’ in the certificate verified box.
- Registration and claims will be available from 6 January 2025, claims can’t be submitted until the registration confirmation including the child’s unique WAC Overseas registration number is received.
- An active TFC account must be in place before registration.
- If you registered your child(ren) for WAC UK within JPA and have since been assigned to a location included in WAC Overseas and are accompanied by your family, you will need to register again using the WAC Overseas process.
The Wraparound Childcare DIN will be updated with the capped hourly rates for WAC Overseas, and further information and guidance about how to submit a WAC Overseas claim will be available on the Defence childcare Information Page on DefNet and Defence Connect in the week commencing 6 January.
Families assigned outside of the areas covered by WAC Overseas funding.
The overseas picture is complex, where one solution will not fit all. As such, not all overseas locations are able to mirror the WAC scheme eligibility criteria. Further work will take place to explore other options for how we can support primary school aged childcare in other overseas locations.
We will keep you updated as this work progresses.
Need more information?
Families assigned outside of the areas covered by WAC Overseas funding.
The overseas picture is complex, where one solution will not fit all. As such, not all overseas locations are able to mirror the WAC scheme eligibility criteria. Further work will take place to explore other options for how we can support primary school aged childcare in other overseas locations.
We will keep you updated as this work progresses.
Need more information?
Further information will be added to the Defence Childcare Information Page on DefNet and Defence Connect in January, including updates to the DIN, new FAQs, and Step-by-Step Guides for registering and claiming WAC Overseas. Keep an eye out for family Q&A sessions, with the WAC team in due course.
If you have any questions, contact the WAC team at PEOPLE-AFFS-WAC-FRO-mailbox@mod.gov.uk
If you have any questions, contact the WAC team at PEOPLE-AFFS-WAC-FRO-mailbox@mod.gov.uk
