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Paid childcare

Discuss everything related to paid childcare here, including childminders, nannies, nurseries and au pairs.

How to pay au pair via vouchers?

5 replies

mulranno · 06/04/2012 17:09

I have an au pair coming from Poland in a couple of weeks - who is a friend of a previous au pair. Can I pay her with childcare vouchers? - what do I need to do to set this up?

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Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
SuePurblybiltFromChocolate · 06/04/2012 17:19

Surely vouchers are for ofsted registered childcarers?
I thought au pairs were paid pocket money and given time to go to college etc? Or am I hopelessly out of date?

ChippingInNeedsCoffee · 06/04/2012 17:25

Sue is right - you can't pay an Au Pair with vouchers. It has to be an Ofsted Registered carer - which a nanny can be, so you could go through registering her as a nanny (which will cost you £120), she would need a childcare qualification (quite low std), a first aid course, nanny insurance etc. Really not practical if she's short term.

nannynick · 06/04/2012 17:28

Assuming you are in England, your au-pair would need to register with Ofsted on the voluntary part of the childcare register.

They will need to complete a Common Core course. This could be something like an introduction to childminding course which may be run by your local authority. It could be a distance learning course, such as Common Core Skills (option 1 or option 2).

They will need to do a paediatric first aid course that is approved by the local authority.

They will need to have Public Liability Insurance. This is provided by various companies, including Morton Michel and NannyInsure. Insurers will decide based on their own criteria as to if they will provide insurance or not, so if your au-pair has little childcare experience you may find some insurers decline to insure.

Your au-pair will undergo a CRB check as part of the Ofsted registration. They will probably need something from Poland with regard to their criminal record.

Once your nanny has their registration certificate from Ofsted, they need to contact your voucher provider with the registration details. Then the voucher company can issue you with vouchers. You au-pair will need a bank account. I don't know if a Polish bank account could be used, or if it would need to be a UK account.

Hope that is of some help. It could take a couple of week, to many months to become registered.

mulranno · 06/04/2012 17:33

thanks everybody - I did read on the voucher company website that you could use to pay au pair....however as she is only here until July I dont think it is worth it> thx again

OP posts:
ChippingInNeedsCoffee · 06/04/2012 18:31

Oh god no, it would take about that long to get it sorted and cost more than you'd save!!

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