A child care voucher scheme for your employer

You may have heard about the child care voucher schemes from friends or through the media, and be interested in a scheme that allows you to make savings on your child care costs. If your employer doesn't already offer a scheme, it may be worth trying to encourage them to start one.

The benefits to your employer are:

Limited administration: the bulk of the administration is handled by a third party.

Savings on National Insurance: employers only pay NI contributions on what's left of your salary after you have exchanged salary for vouchers.

Adding to the benefits package: the types of benefits a company offers have a significant impact on recruitment and retention.

No additional cost: the fee paid to the administration company is only a percentage of the NI savings, so no additional costs are incurred.

Encourage your employer to investigate a child care voucher system by:

Bringing it up at a staff meeting

Talking to your staff representative

Emailing links to this website to your HR department

Talking to other parents to gauge interest

Raising the scheme at your next appraisal or team meeting

Show how the company can make its own savings with the scheme

Your HR department should have heard of the child care voucher scheme, and may already be investigating providers for it. In this case, it will be useful for them to know that employees are interested and enthusiastic about the possibility of a scheme and it may make it easier to convince senior managers to go ahead. If it is useful, offer to put your HR department in contact with your friend or husband's workplace, if they are already offering the scheme.

Many employee benefits are complicated to set up and run, which can be off-putting for many companies, particularly smaller ones. In this case, the main part of the administration of the scheme is handled outside the company, and the business actually saves money. Once employers see how straightforward the child care voucher scheme is to operate, they should be happy to take part.

For more information,
please call us on 020 8763 8039 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Date: 08/12/2005