Childcare Payments Act 2014

Childcare Payments Act 2014

2014 CHAPTER 28

Commentary on Sections

Childcare Accounts

Section 16: Account providers

86. Section 16 provides the rules about who may be an account provider for the purposes of the scheme. These permit three different categories of provider:

• the Commissioners for HMRC, which would allow HMRC itself to be an account provider, in addition to being responsible for administering the scheme more generally. As HMRC and the account provider would, in this case, be one and the same, subsection (4) modifies the Act to deal with places where HMRC and the account provider would otherwise be two separate bodies, for example, where an account provider is required to give or notify something to HMRC;

• any person or body with whom HMRC have entered into arrangements for the provision of childcare accounts, which would allow one or more public or private sector entities to be an account provider, by agreement with HMRC; and

• the Director of Savings, which would allow the Treasury to determine that National Savings and Investments (NS&I), an executive agency of the Treasury, should be an account provider. If NS&I do provide accounts, they must do so in accordance with any arrangements made with the Commissioners for HMRC.

87. Subsection (3) provides that arrangements made between HMRC and an account provider may include provision for the making of payments by HMRC to the account provider for the provision of childcare accounts. Such payments are not subject to the restrictions on fees imposed by subsections (8) and (9) of section 15.