This was posted on the pacey local forum today which is good news for everyone. I asked them to clarify with the HMRC on claiming for training costs. Please consider this when you next see that Pacey do nothing for childminders.
Hi Debbie
Sorry for the delay, we've been waiting for HMRC to clarify this and now I have their answer I will do my best to explain:
You cannot claim the training expenses when getting the initial skills to set up as a childminder, however once you are trading as a childminder you can claim training expenses when enhancing your skills. These must be necessary for your work, for example if there was a Childminding refresher course that you had to do annually etc then this would generally be allowable, equally as mentioned, safeguarding and first aid courses are essential and so are allowable.
The vital point is that any training claimed must only be essential for you to do childminding, in other words enhancing your knowledge, if asked you would need to prove that it was essential for you do this training to continue and enhance your work.
An example of something you wouldn't be able to claim would be if you did an art course at college; although you might do art with the children, this would not be essential for the job and so would not be seen as being related to your work and so not allowable.
The issue with any additional training or qualification you may take is that is has to be proved that it is purely for your current Childminder role, if it is a more generic qualification that is transferable it may not be allowable as it is not specific to this job.
Link to HMRC info BIM42526 - Specific deductions: administration: own training courses
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