Childcare vouchers while on maternity leave

[fedupandduckedfoff]

I am nearing the end of my maternity leave, but have just discovered that had I not removed myself from the childcare vouchers scheme while on maternity leave, my company would have been obliged to fund them.

I withdrew after 3 months when my full pay came to an end as I didn't want to use my statutory pay on childcare vouchers because I needed it for other things.

Do I have an recourse with my employer for not mentioning that I would be entitled to this?

I emailed them a couple of weeks ago and they basically said yes, we would have paid them but you withdrew from the scheme.

Did they tell you you should come out of the scheme, or tell you you wouldn't be entitled to them? If they misled you in that kind of way, you may want to take it further.

But if nothing was said either way and you made a decision completely by yourself to come out of the scheme, that's different. Your employer mustn't deny you any of your rights, and of course should give you accurate information, but they are not expected to interfere in your personal decision making. You are expected to inform yourself of your rights and make decisions accordingly bearing in mind your own personal circumstances.

Yeah what flowery said. It's a shame you made a mistake but unless they lied to you they have no obligation to pay you what you surrendered.

I thought that might be the case unfortunately!

It's a shame -obviously the onus is on the individual to find out what they are entitled to but it never in a million years occured to me that would be the case and you don't really go looking for things that you don't know exist!

This happened to me back in 2008 (NHS). I was on my second maternity leave and, like you, I stopped the vouchers just before my pay dropped. Work did not mention anything to me at all, neither did the childcare voucher people.
I only found out about it a couple of years ago and there was nothing I could do! GGrrrr.

I know it's around £2.2k so extremely annoying!

They don't make it very clear to us do they? I wonder why? Anything that saves them money and they will keep 'mum' about it!