Virtual voucher scheme or busy bees

[MrsDoolittle]

Can someone help me here?
I understand these are schemes that should help with childcare costs.
I work for a large public organisation that make absolutely no provision for childcare. I am wondering how to approach HR on this issue. My manager is horrified and has offered to back me up on this one.
I have already had a big fight over maternity allowance, so I want to treat this one carefully. I am lucky to have the support of my professional managers here but HR are not very helpful atall.

Do you qualify for Working Tax Credit? they pay up to 75% of childcare costs I think.

I do. My point is that most large organisation will help with childcare in some way, I feel this one should too

Mine is a very big organisation but they don't help

Sad isn't it?! Have you not heard of these schemes helsi?

No. I have only heard of some companies having subsidised chreches (sp) attached to the organisation.

I get childcare vouchers every month - amount depends on hours you work - and it is a taxable benefit, but it does cover between a third and a half of a full time nursery place (for second child i got half the amount again) Stops when they start school. Not sure how i could have managed without it. Have been fortunate.

Where do they come from jude?
It's the heavy childcare fees that mean we will have to wait till dd starts school for another

Sorry i didn't explain very well. My Company give me the vouchers monthly - the vouchers themselves are from Accor. I then pass the vouchers on as part-payment to the nursery.
The company i work for encourage mum's back to work and are pretty flexible.

That's exactly what I mean jude. I think that's what the virtual wouchers and busy bess are.

Childcare Vouchers are a way for the employer to assist employees with childcare costs. Vouchers are exempt from NIC for both employers and employees. In essence a form of salary sacrifice. Employee formally agree to a reduction in his taxable salary and instead receives that amount (equivalent) to the reduction in vouchers. This means NIC savings of up to 12.8% for employers and up to 11% for employees. This tax year higher rate earners only save 1%. However, from April 2005 the vouchers will be exempt from tax as well as NI, and this will make the scheme of more interest to the higher rate tax payer. The voucher limit will be capped at £218 a month, currently there is no cap.

The vouchers can be used to pay for; registered childcare e.g. childminders, nurseries, out of school clubs and holiday clubs. Also for unregistered childcare e.g. nannies and relatives e.g grandparent (but not the parent of the child). There is no cost to the childcare provider in receiving payment through vouchers. The voucher company provides information packs and a helpline to explain the process. I look after employee benefits and are about to use busy bees as the voucher provider. There is no reason why an employer wouldn't go for this scheme it costs them nothing.

We use Busy Bees vouchers to fully pay nursery fees and does make a good saving. DH orders them himself (dk if through BBees directly or through his employer) and the voucher is sent to us. Can't explain it properly but there is a slight saving to the employer too eg the service charge the voucher company charge is slightly less than the discount the employer gets, I think. I've just persuaded my employer to start using the scheme as apart from a little bit of staff time, it costs nothing. I work for a small (in staff terms)charity and my husband for a university so can be done at both ends of the scale.

If you get opposition, you could always point out that it works on the same basis as things like the computers for home scheme which actually involves expenditure for staff. And it doesn't cost anything.

Also it's not hard for the carer to sign up to scheme either and I think blood relatives count as long as they are being paid. Busy Bees website has a good explanation

Thank you very much ladies. I am going to ask HR today. I'll keep you posted

I contacted HR and I the response was simply "Sorry (organsisations name) does not participate in any childcare voucher scheme"
So that's told me then!!

If you go to the daycare trust site they have a factsheet for employers (though it still focuses more on the current scheme than on the new figures for next year). Or the accor site has some case studies on it. Put together some illustrative figures, and than go over the head of the person who told you they don't do it AT THE MOMENT and go to your HR director with a proposal. Make a big point that it costs them nothing (might even save them money), but is great in terms of staff retention, etc and angle it as positive for the organisation.

There's extra info here from the inland revenue.

Thank you very much for this Lunarsea.
I am putting things together to offer a proposal for HR. I am truly grateful