We recently spoke to an engineering company. “We’re a bunch of blokes, on the factory floor, making aircraft parts”, they said, “childcare vouchers are not for us”. They had 1000 employees. We calculated that as a company, they could be saving over £11000 per year on National Insurance. Their working parents could be saving nearly £1200 each per year in National Insurance and Income Tax, or nearly £60000 between them. That’s a lot of money. It’s money that is provided as part of a government-backed scheme, to help pay for the provision of childcare. It’s money that, to be frank, every company should be grabbing a hold of for their staff. Especially in these days of credit crunch. All a company has to do is give us a call and we’ll set up their scheme for them, tell their staff about it and run it for them. It really doesn’t matter what their company does, or how many blokes they’ve got working for them. After all, childcare vouchers can be used by mothers and fathers alike.
Both parents benefit
My wife loves internet shopping. Whether it’s on eBay, or at Sainsbury’s. It’s the convenience really. 24-hour access and delivery to the front door. She’s at home most of the time, choosing as she does to look after our kids instead of working. However, the littlest one started nursery last year. We are able to reduce the cost of the nursery by using childcare vouchers. What’s really neat about the You at Work scheme is that my wife can access the system from home, across the internet. My payroll department takes £243 of my pre-tax and pre-NI income and pays it to You at Work. They make the funds available for my wife to pay our daughter’s nursery in the form of childcare vouchers. My wife often makes the payment on a Sunday evening. She can even top it up with a bit of her own money if the bill comes in for more than the government lets me contribute.
Using childcare vouchers for football?
My son is now 17, and plays football for the local team. When he was 11, he used to spend most of his half-term holidays on football courses. They used to cost me an arm and a leg. We had a leaflet come through the door last week, announcing this half-term’s football courses. My daughter (13) wants to go on one. I just noticed that the people providing the course are OfSTED registered, so I can use my childcare vouchers to pay for the course. Fantastic. I might even be able to afford the trial week at the local Premiership club next Easter now.
Making people take notice
The greater the number of staff that take up childcare vouchers, the greater the savings to the company. There are a number of tried and tested ways of getting the message out there: emails, desk drops, intranet. There are a number of others that seem to work well in really getting people interested. How about information in/on payslip envelopes? Posters in the canteen; posters on the backs of loo doors, text messages to the van drivers?