I think the current salary sacrifice limit of £243 a month is ridiculously low given how childcare costs rise year on year, but I'm not hopeful Cameron's goons plan to do anything.
It's ridiculous. I'm not getting into a debate about SAHMs/working parents, but from a purely economic perspective, both parents working and using childcare means that there are 3 people paying taxes, not one.
I've had my second child so we're really looking at the options now, as we're in the position that one of us will be working for nothing. I have quite a stressful job and DH's company are awful when it comes to flexibility when DS was ill, which rarely has happened and he always made the hours up or took them as annual leave so it's not just the cost, it's the whole quality of life issue now.
What also really, really pisses me off is that you're at the mercy of employers if they want to set up a voucher scheme or not. Luckily, my company does as it's a big multinational. DH's employer is much smaller, and at the time he was the only one interested. I did all the research about the scheme (this site was invaluable in that respect), printed off the brochures of some companies who offered it. It took a year for them to get their asses in gear and do the 30 minutes admin work required to get it going. The MD didn't give a fuck, the accountant said he was too busy, and when DH enquired politely as to the status he really was given the bums rush. A senior colleague intervened, and they finally looked at the stuff I'd given months later, but their delay cost us £1,000. It should be compulsory to set it up. I'm an accountant myself, and for crying out loud if I could save someone £1k a year and the company a few quid in NI, by doing 30 minutes work, of course I would.It kills me that because we were reliant on a lazy waste of space to do it, we lost that much money.
I think something has to be done. Ok, chances are the cost of making ALL childcare tax deductible is too high, but certainly raise the present limit.