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the budget (bleurgh!)
Just wondered if anyone knew what was happening to childcare vouchers and free nursery places for 3 year olds. Can't find anything that has been said about them - guess no news is good news? We are going to be in massive trouble if they get rid of them on top of everything else!
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I hate all the uncertainty. I knew it was going to be bad but I would much rather have the worst over and have a better sense of where we stand. It has been three years of worry over what is happening with my husband's job - and he is supposed to be on a secure permanent contract!
Haven't heard anything about nursery places for 3 year olds so fingers crossed as that will affect whether hubby carries on working after no. 2 comes along
No 2 already on way so we'll just have to cope one way or the other!
Labour Party Conference: Childcare vouchers to lose tax relief
Louisa Peacock 29 September 2009 17:30
The government will scrap tax and national insurance contribution exemptions for childcare vouchers provided by an employer, instead offering free childcare for 250,000 two-year-olds, Gordon Brown has announced.
In his keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference in Brighton, the prime minister revealed from April 2011, employees who join an employer-supported voucher scheme will not be entitled to the existing exemptions.
The exemptions, which cost the UK ??500m for 2008-09, are worth up to ??900 for a basic rate taxpayer and ??1,200 for a higher rate taxpayer. For every employee who joins a childcare voucher scheme, employers save up to ??373 a year.
Today the prime minister announced the funding would instead go towards free nursery places for two-year-olds so that 250,000 children will benefit by 2015-16.
He said: ???????I am proud to announce today that by reforming tax relief we will by the end of the next Parliament be able to give the parents of a quarter of a million two-year-olds free childcare for the first time.???????
The Department for Children, Families and Schools told Personnel Today the removal of the tax and NIC exemptions for childcare vouchers provided by an employer would be done through a ???????phased withdrawal???????.
???????From April 2011, employees who join an employer-supported voucher scheme will not be entitled to the existing exemptions. Existing recipients of vouchers will be unaffected until April 2015, when the exemptions for vouchers will be withdrawn completely. These changes affect childcare vouchers only - the long-standing exemptions for workplace nurseries will remain unchanged,??????? a spokeswoman said.
Exact details of the scheme will be announced in the pre-budget report, expected in November.
Childcare vouchers are offered by more than 35,000 employers in the UK, according to HMRC figures.
Childcare providers were alarmed at the shock proposals to remove the exemptions. A joint statement from four childcare providers Accor Services UK, Computershare Vouchers Services (formerly called Busy Bees Childcare Vouchers), Grass Roots Group and Sodexo Pass, said: ???????We believe that the government must protect this essential support [childcare vouchers] for working parents and businesses in the UK.
"As we move towards recovery from recession, this is not the time to be making life harder for hundreds of thousands of families. Britain's -squeezed middle' rely on tax-exempt childcare vouchers to help pay for quality childcare.???????
UK childcare arrangements
???????The government offers free nursery places for all three- and four-year-olds. At the last Labour Party Conference, the prime minister announced this would be extended to cover two-year-olds as well, starting with the most disadvantaged. Some 23,000 two-year-olds currently benefit.
???????Tax exemptions for childcare vouchers were introduced in 2005. They allow employers to provide their employees with up to ??55 per week of vouchers without employer or employee being liable for tax or NICs on the value of the benefit.
???????In 2006, the National Centre for Social Research estimated that one-third of users of childcare vouchers paid higher rate tax.
'n contrast, teachers will not be affected until 2011.
Michael Gove, the education secretary, confirmed that teachers' three-year pay deal would be honoured in full and that they would still receive a pay rise due in September, the last instalment of that three-year deal.'
So teachers will continue to go up the pay scale. UPS though is dependent on performance management and Ive heard of schools not allowing teachers to progress onto that - but once youve got it they can't take.
I hope that the pay freeze isn't going to affect you too seriously. It is all so stressful for everyone at the moment.
I am hoping the Gov don't scrap the free nursery / pre-school hours for kids but at the same time, its not that relevant as Toby's "current" nursery don't enter into the free hours scheme anyway!!! Chuh!
We might move house soon and maybe move T into a diff nursery that DOES accept the free hours so that would be very disappointing.
We would both be gutted to lose the childcare vouchers though as hubby and I both buy the max. each month.
Thinking of everyone at this tough time! xxxxxxxxxx