with the cost of childcare...
Childcare vouchers are an employee benefit that you can provide to all eligible parents within your organisation that will enable them to pay for childcare in a more cost efficient way.
Providing childcare vouchers is often regarded as a key measure of your attitude towards working parents and can really help your employees to better manage the costs of childcare.
This is because the vouchers allow employees to pay for childcare provision through their employer and as a result both employer and employee can benefit from savings in tax and national insurance.
How do they work?
Employees choose the amount of vouchers they would like, up to £55 per week or £243 per month. Vouchers can be either paper based or online ‘e-vouchers’ and are issued to the employee on a monthly basis. The employee then arranges to pay for their childcare provision with a registered childcare provider using the vouchers.
How much can be saved?
Utilising salary sacrifice to pay for the vouchers can result in savings for both employee (up to £1,195 per annum) and employer (£373 per annum per employee) - so the vouchers are much more cost effective in most instances than simply paying for the childcare direct.
Who can use them?
Any employee with a qualifying child. A child qualifies for childcare vouchers up to 1st September following their fifteenth birthday or if disabled, 1st September following their sixteenth birthday, so they are not just suitable for parents with nursery aged children.
Vouchers can also be used to pay for after school activities as well as childcare, as long as the provider has been registered or approved. This makes the vouchers incredibly versatile for parents and means that all employees with children are likely to benefit in some way from the provision of childcare voucher scheme.
More detailed information can be found in our FAQ section.
