Busy Bees Nursery Vouchers

[rosehip]

Anyone ussing/used these in the past - any catch, do these have to be used at a Busy Bees Nursery, if so have they a good reputation?

Am trying to get them in use at the moment, there don't seem to be any catches and they xcan be used for a variety of childcare, including relatives. More info from busybees.com and a good article on guardian website, in the money section "cash clinic".

Accor services www.accorservices.co.uk also do a similar scheme, which our nursery is part of. The idea seems to be that you get vouchers in lieu of part of your salary, and consequently you and your employer avoid paying NI contributions on that amount. The childcarers get the same amount of money, so everyone is happy! I'm currently trying to persuade my employer, a large NHS trust, that it would be worth their while offering the vouchers.

I get the Accor ones, which seem to be totally hassle free (and save me about £50/month), from out point of view and the nursery's.

For the benefit on anyone who isn't aware of the scheme (as I suspect it's not widely known)....

It's possible to legally avoid paying National Insurance contributions (currently 10% on all your salary between £4,524-£29,900 per annum, and going up another 1% next year even on incomes over that) on your childcare costs simply by getting your employer to pay part of your salary in childcare vouchers. And the good news is that your employer wouldn't have to pay contributions on them either, so the money saving is a good argument in your favour if you want to suggest it (the providing companies do charge, but this is less than the NI saving).

The only limitation is that the vouchers have to be paid to registered care facilities (which includes registered childminders, nurseries, etc) or to relatives, not to unregistered childminders.

For an explanation of the scheme see this article www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4402132,00.html and a BBC Moneybox item at news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/audiovideo/programmes/moneybox/newsid_1972000/1972593.stm#Childcare Vouchers and the inland revenue information relating to this at www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/manuals/nimmanual/nim16100/nim16101.htm

The vouchers are available from www.accor-services.co.uk/childcarevouchers/ and www.busybees.com/business/childvouchers.htm
Hope this helps.

Tissy - you might get some useful figures from this document to support your case with your employers. In fact you've given me an idea - I'll mention this to my neighbour who's the finance director of an NHS trust (and dad to 2 nursery age children) and see if his trust do it. Might be worthwhile for them to investigate it if not.