CM refusing tax free childcare

As a childminder I find it works well for me. Parent transfers a week before it's due. It takes 3 days to clear her side then 3 days to drop into my account. I give my parents till 10th of every month to pay in advance. My bills go out 15th so I have leeway with everything. If it's good for parents it makes good business sense.

I appreciate the actual numbers are not as directly comparable as I thought. But TFC is not £200 per month. It is still better for you though.

@CCS83 I use TFC. It’s max £2000 per year (£500 per quarter) which is £166.67 per month. And actually they top up by 25% - so you pay £8000 over the year and they make it up to £10000.

Assuming higher rate tax payer you will get £124 in vouchers and the annual tax saving is £624. But saving doubled if both parents can get vouchers.

Still &2000 is better

@CCS83 but you can only get up to £166 per month with TFC so it’s not s huge difference. Not worth losing reliable childcare for the sake of £23 per month!

Ummmm , just like if parents were paying by bank transfer then ? You can’t phone the parents bank either !

No, but bank transfers are usually either instant or take just a couple of days, so you can see the money pretty quickly and take action if the parent has lied.

With these schemes operated by third parties, they can take several days, or weeks, to process the payments, so it could be a couple of weeks before the CM realises the parent has lied and that the money isn't on the way after all.

That would be a fairly poor business decision!

Not if they had no trouble getting parents who didn't want to use the new system.

Just the same as small businesses who don't accept credit cards. They've made a business decision.

If they're busy enough without the hassle of dealing with these things, then it's not a "poor business decision" at all.

A child minder can only take a certain number of children. If they can "fill their books" with easier/simpler customers, then actually that's a really good business decision.

Is threatening to pull my son unless she signs up too extreme?? We pay her more than our mortgage in fees so would be a significant drop in income for her??

No it's not too extreme, of course it's better to find a provider that accepts TFC. I do see both sides as she may just not want the hassle of it. I know it causes DS's nursery a total headache. As a parent I've been using TFC for almost 2 years and get the full £2k benefit per child, so definitely worth the hassle, but in that time I've had 2 lost/failed payments to the nursery (though HMRC did offer compensation for the late fees), and a few other technical glitches.

I take tax free childcare and vouchers. I also encourage parents to find out what they're entitled to. Sad to say though, some voucher schemes and HMRC seem to like to 'use' the money before passing it on to us. Some voucher schemes are excellent and I get my money on the parents pay day, as they transfer it immediately on receipt.

A parent had to pay me twice one month, because their voucher company had 'lost' their money. We tried to get it for 3 months before I finally said the parent needed to pay me and keep trying to get the voucher money sorted. There was nothing else I could do to help, because it's not my voucher account.

You don’t actually need to leave the voucher scheme though and you would be barely better off on TFC. So it’s all a bit moot.

CCS83 when the TFC started some payments took 3 months to reach settings and many are still unpredictably slow hence the resistance. Most of us do take a variety of schemes but this one is not working well at the moment so realistically the cost of supporting it could be loss of a home, would you be willing to risk not feeding or housing your family to support a political cause? Let alone when you've already lost £60 a month on one child?

Gosh some snotty Child Minders are on here, hope you treat the children you care for better than you treat the parents!

"tannith well I wouldn't, am I not allowed to say that?"

You can say what you like, within reason. However, you can't really complain when Georgie responds in kind.

surely you can ask if there is anything pending into your account?

No, the system does not show that information. Would be useful if it did... it could send an email notification to say that a parents payment was on route... however imagine how difficult that would be for providers who have many children such as a nursery with 100+ children. The system needed to work for a provider with one, two or a few children whose fees were paid via it, as well as for providers who had 100+ children.

Are the vouchers more of a guarantee that you get your money on time?
No, I've had issues in the past with childcare vouchers not going through as expected.

icannotremember - vouchers often represent only part of the fees. Obviously that depends on the situation but vouchers are limited in being up to £243 per parent. TFC on the other hand can be for the full amount of childcare cost, which can be £thousands.

Did child care providers get consulted about things like TFC? There was some public consultation but how many knew about such consultation documents and responded is another matter. TFC to their credit did setup a provider forum when they realised that things may not be working out well - which has resulted in nannies being included in the scheme and some changes being made to the online system so it shows cleared funds and other things.

Totally agreed. I don't know how governments have the gall to say they are funding 30/15 hours, knowing the amount they are prepared to pay per hour isn't sufficient for childcare settings to pay their own bills.

My cm is dubious about accepting TFC. She's happy to take vouchers though. Are the vouchers more of a guarantee that you get your money on time? Did child care providers get consulted about things like TFC? What would be their ideal system, I wonder?

*schemes

Maybe we should be looking at the government who keep offering these benefits without fully considering the implementation of such achenes or investing adequate funding to run them. It’s neither parents nor childminders faults that they aren’t fit for purpose.

Parents on the other hand are getting more help than ever and some don't seem to be appreciating it.

When the help available is blocked by childcare providers who find it doesn't help them- and fair enough, if they can manage without the parents who rely on it then of course they will do so- what is there to appreciate?

flamingofridays...you missed my point the cm's don't pay childcare but may have started work as cm's before schemes came in when everybody just paid the cost over time they have had their terms and conditions forced on them by Government policy even down to dictating a rate (unlike any other self employed person the government promised parents free childcare and then 2 years later said to providers this is what we will pay you for your work and these are the conditions you will provide it under) so for them times have got harder whilst standards are going up (cm work now is very regulated and a growing number have higher qualifications than nursery managers, qualifications self financed as part of their cpd), This impacts on their ability to cope with late payments and unlike you they cant just absorb the cost of the shortfall until someone pays.

Parents on the other hand are getting more help than ever and some don't seem to be appreciating it.