Commentary on Sections Eligibility Section 5: Entitlement periods
45.Section 5 provides for the length of an entitlement period to be 3 months, and enables that to be amended or varied in certain circumstances.
46.Subsections (2) and (3) enable regulations to make a general amendment of the length of an entitlement period or to enable HMRC to vary it in particular cases. Regulations may also make provision about when an entitlement period begins or ends.
47.Regulations will, for example, allow HMRC to determine that a person’s entitlement periods will end around the middle of the month, to avoid the beginnings and ends of months when payments into and out of childcare accounts are most likely. They will also allow HMRC to set a person’s entitlement periods for a child so that they coincide with the entitlement periods of a childcare account for a child’s sibling.