Can you help me understand how childcare vouchers actually work please? :-)

[QueenEagle]

I will be starting full time in a little over 2 weeks. Both dh and I can get "Busy Bees" childcare vouchers from our respective workplaces. I'm not sure if Busy Bees is a national thinng or just something in my neck of the woods (Bedfordshire).

My questions are:

1. Can both me and dh claim them or is only one of us allowed to? How do I/we claim?

2. Do you actually get a voucher to pay to your childminder/How is the childminder paid with them?

3. How does the minder convert them into cash?

4. Any other info you can give me would be great.

look here!

Ah thank you! I posted this topic then found that site, duh!

Does anyone here actually use them - how easy are they - I'd like some feedback from anyone who actually uses them to tell me how easy it is!

I get them from a parent - money miraculously arrives in my bank account

Try to do it a month before you need it - my money always goes in few days late for one parent - but another parent pays me by the first 'cos they use last months vouchers (if that makes sense/)

We've used Busy Bees.

1. Both of you can claim up to £243 per month each. You should apply to your employer - they will give you a form to fill in and you will have a 'salary sacrifice' of £243 (or howeveer much you choose) per month..this means that your 'salary' will go down although once you add on the 243 the actual amount of money+vouchers will be about £50 more than the amount you are earning at the moment - the extra dosh is because you aren't paying income tax or NI on the £243. If you are higher rate tax payers the saving is even more. If you are likely to take maternity leave in the nearish future it is worth noting that maternity pay which is calculated as a percentage of your salary will be calculated using the new 'lower' salary so it may not be worth claiming the vouchers in those circumstances. There is also a knock-on effect on your pensionable pay but if you are a long way off pension age it shouldn't be too bad.
2. With the Busy bee scheme that dh's employers run - yes you get an actual voucher. You will need to tell Busy Bees the name and ofsted number of your childminder and it is printed onto the voucher (although if you change childminder you can ring BB and they will allocate the voucher to the new one - we have done this)
3. Your minder will get a 'carer pack' which they need to fill in (general contact details and proof of registration/ofsted number, and bank account details). They send it off to BB and when they get a voucher from you they ring up the BB phone line and tell them the voucher number. The voucher amount will then be credited to their bank account in a few days. Some voucher companies also do 'internet vouchers' which are not real paper vouchers, You log onto the website and transfer the 'voucher' to the minder yourself. Don't know if BB offers this.
4. Can't think of anything else - we had no problems at all with BB and according to our minder their phone line people are really helpful.

Cross-posted with all them others!

My employer doesn't use Busy Bees vouchers, but vouchers from another company. If it helps, neither my employer or myself actually get any physical voucher - it is all done electronically. I get an e-mail from the voucher company once a month when they transfer the payment, and when I check my bank account, my bank shows the BACS transfer. It was easy to setup and seems to run well. Hope that is of some help, even though it is another voucher provider.

It's a national thang.

1. yes you can both claim it. You can do it through the website bonkerz posted.

2. you can choose to receive paper vouchers in the post, or vouchers on line, or direct payment into nursery's bank account. Nursery has to be registered with Busybees.

3. no idea if it's paper vouchers! Our nursery just gets paid direct.

I just applied for all this today, and the lady I rang filled out my form for me, then emailed it to me to check, sign and return by fax. Seemed really easy. I have 2 colleagues who use it and say it's simple and saves quite a bit of cash.

Thank you Millarkie and Katymac.

In the first instance, should I be the one to phone for a pack? Or both dh and me? Does the minder request her own pack or does everything come to me?

Sorry, so many questions!

DH gets them for afterschool for dd1. They seem really straightforward, we get one once a month, take it to after-school, she takes it off our bill, still gives us a statement and we know exactly where we are with them.

QE, yes you need to contact Busy bees yourself.

In our case we downloaded the minder's form off the internet but think it didn't print too well so I may have phoned and asked for them to send the carer pack to me. Then we handed it over to the carer - but this was mainly because our childcarer was not very good at paperwork and we wanted to 'hold her hand'. Most childminders must be pretty good at paperwork if they've survived the ofsted experience!

Thank you all!

Will phone them in the morning.

wish all my parents paid them its so easy for me just a phone call and the moneys in my bank
gave out leaflets the other week advertising them

can you use these vouchers with all ofsted registered childminders?

As long as the minder agrees - yes.

One more question:

How long does it take to register and set up?
Only I start work on 26th Feb, get paid at the end of March and am likely to have to pay the minder by the end of March also. Will the voucher scheme be set up and sent to me by the end of March?

IME it depends how good your company is at getting payroll organised. Payroll have to deduct the amount from your salary, make the tax/NI adjustments and pay the voucher company for the vouchers ( I know ours pays the voucher company mid-month (18th ish) to get the vouchers delivered in time for pay day at the end of the month.