Childcare vouchers and maternity leave - we've gotta fight for our rights!!

[ceebee74]

This is a spin off from an ante-natal thread but feel free to join in if you are in this situation - there are currently 3 of us trying to get to the bottom of the new legislation that has just come in.

Vbab&Sparkle - what I meant by 'paying twice' may not affect you if you just receive statutory maternity pay whilst on mat leave - but my employer has quite a generous scheme so I get 8 weeks at full pay, 18 weeks at half pay plus SMP and the final 13 weeks at SMP only - so they can still deduct the vouchers for the first 26 weeks of my mat leave as I am receiving something other than SMP.

However the amount of my maternity pay is calculated on the average I earned during 17-25th weeks of pg so, if I had still taken the vouchers during those weeks, my salary would have been lower (as it would have been on an amount with the vouchers deducted) therefore my mat pay would be based on the lower amount and then during my mat leave, as I receive Occupational Maternity Pay, they would also have deducted the £243 vouchers aswell - so technically I would have paid twice for them - does that make sense?

It doesn't really affect you if you only receive SMP apart from the first 6 weeks.

Anyway, going to work out the figures now as I do think, if it is right that you can't have it both ways, I have picked the best option for me.

But, when I cancelled my vouchers in July, the woman at our voucher provider knew it was so my pay would not be affected and she confirmed I could restart them in September so I am a bit confused about this stopping and restarting business. Will try and find out more.

No it's obviously great for those who benefit now and you should absolutely get your entitlement. I think I might ring our HR department tomorrow and see if they are up to scratch on it!

It is a difficult position to be in really as I am obviously going to get what I am entitled to but also, I can see that it will cause major problems for organisations (plus I have to put with my boss - the HR Director - moaning about it on a regular basis. He actually asked me at one point why I needed to put DS in nursery if I was going to be at home anyway )

I would be interested in knowing what your HR department says about it.

[crash]

Am going on mat leave next year and spoke to the person in charge childcare vouchers at work yesterday as I was wondering if and when to withdraw from the scheme- he basically said that my vouchers would be paid once I'm on SMP

now at work there are 2 options for mat pay
either - 18 weeks full pay followed by SMP for the remaining time up to 9 months
or- 9 weeks full pay, 18 weeks half pay (with 9 of those plus SMP) followed by SMP up to 9 months

last time I took the second option- I can see that now the first option would result in more free childcare for me! Feel vaguely bad about this somehow...

however if they work out my full pay as being minus the salary sacrifice for vouchers (and I have just increased this to £300)...and then deduct the vouchers too I won't feel so bad about taking the first option! am going to email them tomorrow to clarify how they work out the mat pay.

Help! My HR just got back to me and said that because of tax reasons (?) it's not possible to suspend the vouchers for two months? Does anybody know if this is true?

I sent him back to call to Accor and to check also if for some reason it's not possible to suspend them, can I decrease the amount to the minimum for two months and then go back to normal. Our HR is absolulutely useless and every time I've been involved with them with a request they have gotten it wrong. Sorry for the rant.

Hi America

I have not come across that issue before about not being able to suspend the vouchers for tax reasons - could he give you more information?? Our voucher provider is very flexible so you can stop and start them whenever you want and even very the amount month by month (my colleague does this) - no mention of any tax problems or implications.

The HR guy says that the taxman told him that because this is a salary sacrifice scheme, it is not possible to increase my salary one month and decrease it the next because it screws their annual tax calculation? I cannot believe this is true- what would happen for those going on part time half way through the tax year?

Accor told me that there is no problem to suspend the vouchers so I guess I have to impose my decision to the HR. I'm slightly worried though, 'cause again the HR guy told me that if I suspend the vouchers now, I cannot start them again before the end of the tax year?

America - I know at my work you need a good reason to alter your voucher amount and same is true at my DH's work. However pregnancy is one of the allowable reasons and we just said to DH's work that I was increasing my hours and they accepted that (even tho it wasn't actually true .

What I am saying is I think there is something in that statement about it mucking tax up but you certainly have an allowable reason to change if pregnant.

I wanted to say a MASSIVE thank you to ceebee74 for bringing this to our attention. As a result of your original post, I printed out all the information on here and took it to my HR department and they have just come back to me today and confirmed that they will pay vouchers to every female on maternity leave, for the full 12 months without deductions etc. Which is nearly £3,000 of maternity pay which I would not have received if it was not for Mumsnet!

I actually cried when she called me.

I don't know how to thank you enough.

SS x

Yes, thanks! I managed to suspend the vouchers for two months and have received a confirmation that I will have the vouchers without deductions for the 12 months too!

the power of mumsnet!

am i reading this correctly?

whilst on maternity leave (if baby due after October 2008), as long as you are only receiving SMP, your employer has to provide you with childcare vouchers with no monetary deductions to you? so you would get a year (minus the initial 6 weeks) of 'free' childcare vouchers? and you do not have to pay the money back??

excuse my ignorance...have i misinterpreted?? this sounds too good to be true??!!!!!

Help! Has anyone any HR expertise? My husband's employer has got wind of the fact that vouchers have to be paid on top of SMP and has decided to totally withdraw from offering childcare vouchers!!! We are now nearly £1,000k/year worse off and there seems nothing we can do about it.

Which is gutting when I think how much money I am left with at the end of the month after childcare costs are taken.

I am now worried about how long it will take for my employer and others to cotton on and risk withdrawing from what is a really good scheme!!?

Hi

Just come back to this thread as I need to find the links for a friend.

Saladsucks and America so glad I helped you get what you are entitled to

Munchkin unfortunately one of the downsides of this new legislation is that a lot of companies will withdraw the scheme and there isn't anything employees can do about it.

It will be up to employers to weigh up the cost of providing the vouchers when a woman is on maternity leave against the benefits of having the scheme (eg. better staff retention etc) but money usually talks unfortunately! My organisation is a public sector one and even they are considering withdrawing it so a profit-organisation is going to have an even stronger view about it I guess.

There is a legal reason why you cannot alter you vouchers without a good reason (busy bees have always been in breach of this) and that is - if you can give up the benefit at any time the sacrifice isn't effective and all the tax relief you just received from the beginning of the scheme to point you decided to leave to manipulate your SMP is recoverable.

www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/EIM42760.htm

This is why employers who run this very valuable benefit give you a list of lifestyle changes under which IF you need more or less vouchers you can vary the agreement and not break the terms of the sacrifice.

This a great benefit employers offer and the new sex legislation makes it even more beneficial..why would you wish to abuse it?

The new legislation simply extends the payment of vouchers to AML, the rules during OML and leaving or varying the scheme have not altered.

Saramy - what do you mean by 'abuse it'?

ceebee74 - Thanks for this thread - although a bit late for me as I'm 32 weeks on Friday! Hey ho.

I have checked this out with my payroll department (I work in Local Government) and have said they don't take account of childcare vouchers in the calculation of maternity pay.

I think this means, I get SMP because even after taking account of childcare vouchers I am above the threshold so am entitled. The OML is calculated on my salary and then the vouchers some off this - this seems right to me - will see when I go on maternity leave.

I think I may put a cat among the pigeons so to speak as I have asked about the payment of childcare vouchers for the 12 weeks of unpaid AML.

You don't get if you don't ask!

Will keep the thread informed of my progress.

Whilst I have no axe to grind with individuals taking advantage of this situation, I am sure that in the long run it will be bad news to many working parents as companies will decide they cannot afford the burden of funding this and will withdraw from scheme altogether.

Dilbertina - I do agree with you tbh even though I am in the situation where I am entitled to the money and will obviously be taking it but would also be upset if my company stopped the scheme in the future - I guess the law is back-to-front sometimes!

I just found out about this through the article in the Observer today.

I'm absolutely gutted. I think my scheme will probably be ok (public sector) but my dh has been asked to present to his bosses on how they would benefit by offering the vouchers (after months of resistance) and if they get any wind of this it will be dead in the water.

Away to actually read the thread now.

Ok, so I think I understand now and I'm v happy obviously for those who will benefit while on mat leave, but I don't think dh will have a snowball's chance in hell of getting it past his bosses.

His line was going to be it was like giving qualifying employees a £900pa pay rise at no cost to them, but obv that is no longer the case.

And we'll need to make savings of a further £900 pa if the scheme stops for me. Crap.

My first child is due in January, i'm going on maternity leave 3 months full pay, 3 months half pay then I may choose to go on SMP for 6 months as opposed to returning to work. If I do decide to go onto SMP at 6 months, can I apply for the vouchers at this point for the first time? Also, do these vouchers expire after a certain amount of time ie can I start collecting these vouchers for 6 months while i'm on SMP June-Dec next year and not use them until I return to work at the end of maternity leave? Obviously this would be great if I could as my employer will be meeting the full cost for me to have 6 months worth of vouchers to start using when I return to work! Wishful thinking?

Ginni, I don't think you'll get 6 months SMP - it's up to 39 weeks but I think that would include the period when you'll be on full and half pay and you'd get SMP for the remainder.

I don't know what they do and don't have to agree to but I suspect only applying when you go on to SMP rather than when you're still at work might be a risky strategy.

To clarify, you're entitled to 12 months maternity leave but only 9 months (39 weeks) of SMP. I'm not sure what the position is on vouchers during unpaid maternity leave is though.

Has anyone else come across this scenario? My employer have said that they will pay the childcare costs I have whilst I have no salary being paid but they will run up a tab and I will then have to pay it when I return and resume my salary. I work for a major Bank btw so I suspect they may be within there rights to do this. Has anyone anythoughts on this? Thanks