Childcare vouchers - experience and opinions from parents and childminders please

[elkiedee]

I have a 6 month old baby and am looking a few months in advance for a suitable childminder - think I've found one who I would be happy to send my baby too.

My employer and dp's both offer childcare vouchers.

I'd love to hear from parents and childminders about their experiences with the childcare voucher system, good and bad. For minders, do you get your money reasonably straightforwardly or does it take a lot of trouble?

I use these currently (am parent paying childminder and playgroup) and afaik, it's instant - the money is taken from your paycheque - goes into another account, and then you set up standing orders/payments etc however you're going to organise it to the childcare providers. I do it all online.

you'd be silly to not use it, it's a good savings esp if both you and your partner can take advantage of it

am v cross that teachers dont' qualify for this benefit as of yet......! my lea have been saying for about a year now that they are 'considering' it grrr

there is no bad from my point of view

As a childcarer, I have not had any issues with Faircare (a small voucher provider based in Guildford) which one of my employers schools use - the other school has not yet implemented vouchers (I work for two teachers).

haha - it's annoying isn't it... teacher's pay rules or something delayed things. Has been available for past year, but only some schools. Neither of my employers work for LEA's (as work in Private Independent schools)... so it's down to the individual schools involved.

The idea is good, from my pov as a childminder its no different from being paid by online banking (which is how most parents pay me).

I've been paid very late by Busy Bees who eventually paid me my late fees (but only after one parent gave them an earbashing, I threatened to stop using their vouchers and then complained when they only paid part of my fees having ignored my invoice and decided their own bizarre calculation would suffice).

I've also been paid by Allsave who paid me twice in one week. So I gave parent receipt for the week due & the following week, agreeing parent needn't pay me following week. But Allsave clawed it back a week later as well, with no communcation to me. And when I was looking into this I discovered Allsave had somehow been added to my Direct Debit list as shown online. So I complained to bank that they had been able to take the payment out of my account and why were they on my direct debit list when I have never authorised them to be there. (I hate direct debits!) Bank said they were entitled to claw back the money paid to me as it was an error that got it into my account and that they weren't actually an authorised direct debit. They insisted Allsave would not have been able to take more than was put in in error. Allsave are no longer on my dd list.

Longer answer than I intended to write - basically I approve of childcare voucher schemes but be aware mistakes can occur. I now say that I will give any scheme a trial but will decline any voucher scheme that can't sort out errors quickly/have a lot of problems/can't pay me on time.

no bad points for me either
myself and DH claim the maximum amount (£243 per month each)and it goes to our Nursery
as it comes out of gross pay we don't miss it (and don't get taxed on it either)

My understanding is that the teachers' pension scheme has made a decision which causes problems - I'll have to ask my friend who is a teachers' union activist (NUT).

DP's employers' scheme documents suggested that the vouchers would be handed over as paper documents, so I got the impression it would be like a cheque. I need to find out how my employer pay. Ayla99's story is a bit scary.

I am a parent who uses the vouchers to pay my DS's childminder and my DD's nursery. It works well AFAICS. I do not have a standing order set up because my fees (especially for DS who is at school) vary monthly. I can change the amount of vouchers I receive each month or keep it steady. I tend to build up a surplus for the expensive summer months, for instance, but I reduced them quite a bit this September when my DD became eligible for the nursery grant.

The company my work uses is Accor. DH's company does not do vouchers. I get the money credited to my online voucher account on the 28th of the month which is my payday. I then need to pay my childcare at the start of the next month, so I simply go online, select the childcare provider (I have two), enter the amount I want to pay and that is it. Takes a minute at most.

I actually get more than the £243 that is tax free because I think at our work we get £10 worth for £9.50 and it is easier for it all to be one payment because unfortunately my childcare is significantly more than £243 every month even though I only work 3 days/week.

We've used two different voucher schemes to pay 3 different childminders and 1 nursery and had no problems at all.

It saves us so much money that we carried on paying in while I was on (paid) maternity leave for DS2 even though we weren't paying for childcare. This gave us a nice lump of money in the voucher bank that we are gradually working our way through now that I'm back at work.

The only downside is that in theory it can affect your maternity and pension rights. You need to check this with your employer. It depends on whether these benefits are calculated on the basis of actual salary or notional salary. In my case it made no difference at all.