Childcare Vouchers - why so long?!

I am really disappointed with the whole childcare voucher thing. I'm an employer of a Nanny who started working for us in February. As both my husband and I are fortunate to be able to receive Childcare vouchers, we obviously wanted to be able to pay our Nanny using them. However - despite having had the maximum amount deducted from each of our salaries since February - we have not yet been able to pay our Nanny in vouchers, and have instead been paying her from our net salaries.

In order to receive vouchers, our Nanny had to be registered,and in order to be registered she had to have completed a First Aid Course (she had), and have a formal qualification (she hadn't) or take a 2 day course, plus have an Enhanced CRB check. So she booked on the first available course (2 days in London - we paid as that seemed fair). That was sometime in March. We also paid her £99 registration fee which included the CRB check. Very strangely I thought, they wouldn't even start the CRB check until she had completed the course and sent them the certificate. The CRB check which was eventually initiated in May, took about 10 weeks - and she finally received it in early August. (By which time she'd been looking after our baby for 6 months). Then she had to register with the Childcare voucher people which also took a couple of weeks. We just missed her August pay date, but paid her in Vouchers on the 13th September - when the money was deducted from our voucher account. Some 11 days later she has still not received the money in her bank account - and has gone overdrawn!

So far we've paid about £300 to get our Nanny registered, and in addition have spent a lot of time getting to this point. On the plus side we do have a really great Nanny, and in theory we will soon be able to pay her using the vouchers we have accumulated over the last 7 months. So given that it's taken us 7 months to complete the process, and that the registration needs to be renewed annually - we should start all over again in a few months.

Really the whole scheme seems to be more set up for nurseries or childminders, and doesn't take into account the way that Nannies are hired, and that very few have the registration.

On a separate note - I see that the Ofsted requirements are now that our Nanny should have public liability insurance. At the moment she's covered under our household policy as an employee. Presumably this is insurance in case we sue her for negligence etc? Is there a recommended company for Nannies?