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Grandparents who look after their grandchildren can get £250 a year.
If you spend any time looking after your grandchildren you can get credits worth £250 a year in pension credits. Claiming the benefit for just one year can be worth about £250 a year to your state pension. Which could add up to thousands for your total retirement pot. But only a very small minority are claiming.
More than 10,000 grandparents are claiming pension credits for looking after their grandchildren. But there could still be as many as a million grandparents who are missing out.
Royal London director of policy Steve Webb said it is very common now for grandparents to look after grandchildren while their parents go to work. And if grandparents suffered financially in their own state pension this would be very wrong.
Grandparents under pension age who help with childcare need to find out more. The scheme needs to be a lot better publicised.
The scheme is to help family members who are looking after a child under 12 while the parents are out.
The scheme is known officially as the adult childcare credit. it allows parents who are working and do not need NI credits that come with their child benefit to transfer them to a family member. Aunts and uncles can also claim it if they look after nieces or nephews. The adult child care credit can be backdated to 2011. It is not available to those over state pension age.
The Department for Work and Pensions encourage anyone who would benefit to apply for the credits that they are entitled to. Lots of information on how to apply can be found on gov.uk.
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