non payment due to tax credits

[teddyedwards]

Hi, i am new here, but i wondered if anyone else has lost mindees due to tax credits not paying for childcare. I lost 2 just before xmas, and am still owed £144, and today had 2 weeks notice for 2 children i took 3 weeks ago.Same story. Tax credit overpaid us in past and now wont pay til debt is paid off.I only started minding in august and although i know kids were happy, stimulated etc. and got on with parents, i am now getting paranoid that maybe its me, or us. I am not cross with the parents and in fact made a big effort to not make them feel bad as its not their fault, but do family credit realise they are not just affecting one family with each cockup they make, but they have also dropped my family right in it. Hubby is a taxi driver and this week, on the strength of having the new children, we decided we could afford to buy a new taxi on hp, if we sold our 9 seater van(we have 5 kids as well) and his old peugeot taxi which has 300,000 miles on clock and will soon have to retire due to ill health. So we set wheels in motion for new cab yesterday. Today we lost mindees, although they will be back , and welcomed if its sorted out. How can we plan our lives and improve our businesses with this sort of uncertainty. Iknow childminding and self employment is an uncertain thing anyway, but if the government need us they need to take heed and sort this out now. So if anyone in Exmouth needs before and/or after school care,let me know

Sorry, also meant to ask if there is any way i can complain to family credit/ ofsted etc about the fact that parents are having to leave childminders in the lurch due to lack of childcare payments. Got a good mind to contact GMTV and give our side of the story. They often seem to have debates about childcare and tax credits but have seen nothing about the childminding side of it yet. Seems to me that it is still considered a second class job that we do for a bit of pin money, when in actual fact it is harder than looking after your own children in my opinion.

You could try writing to your MP?

I quite agree with you teddyedwards, all we hear about from the government is how much help they are giving parents to get back to work and get affordable childcare, but they only seem to concentrate on the nursery aspect of it, and forget about us childminders.
Changing the subject ever so slightly, i have never heard any information about childcare vouchers, or how i as a childminder am supposed to cash them in.

Anyway, back to your post. I would write to your MP, and, if it was me, i would write to GMTV/Tabloid whatever, purely because i think us childminders do get a raw deal.

One of my mindies leaves next week - her mum says she is no longer getting any tax credits & can no longer afford me. Her 11 year old will now be going home alone.

I take childcare vouchers - I always say to new families to check their entitlement to tax credits & if they can't get that to see if their employer does/will start childcare voucher scheme. The parent usually enroles & then gives you the details to register - one of my parents uses allsave & the money goes direct to my bank & I get an email a couple of days before to tell me its going in.

have now written to GMTV and attempted to write to my MP. MP has lovely shiny website with cheesy picture(like they all do) but no contact details, so will wait til i have some time to myself (probably when i'm 85 or so) to find his address. The problem with family credit seems to be that the families cannot find out their entitlement until they have started job and childcare. Both families have paid me out of their own wages til creds sorted out but mum 2 is only left with £40 week after paying me. I earn more than that to look after her children while she works. It makes me feel bad every time she pays me,even though i know i have earned it. Dont know about vouchers. I thought you had to be accredited childminder to accept them.Anyway Exmouth is a bit like Greek Islands- 20 years behind in most things. We cant even get ambi -pur refills for car freshener in our tesco.

You need to be accredited to accept the educational vouchers but there are voucher schemes where the employee gets part of their salary paid in childcare vouchers (thus avoiding paying tax on this element of their earnings). They then use the vouchers to pay you (can be payments direct to your bank rather than paper versions).