Do childcare vouchers have to be continuous?

pinkpig08

Hi,
I work term time at the moment and enjoy the school holidays off work. However, my job may not be secure in a couple of years time and I may have to get a job which isn't term time working. If I were to use the voucher scheme, would I need to buy the vouchers regularly or could I just get them for school holidays? We are in the £545 band for CTC BTW.

DaisyFlower

Depends on your employer due to the amount of paperwork involved with payroll etc, could you buy the minimum each month and save them until you need to pay your child care - perhaps split the 12 months childcare costs into 12 months deductions.

pinkpig08

How do they send you the vouchers? They would mainly be needed in the summer so would they send you enough even if you paid over 12 months?

DaisyFlower

Each scheme is slightly different, I dont use one but our works offer it - I believe they are "banked" and you then set up payment to your childcare provider as needed. You will have needed to have "banked" enough to use for the holidays so depends on when you start the scheme, your costs and when the holidays fall.

Have a look on google for the different schemes, it will at least give you an insight as to how they work.

As you only get basic CTC your tax credits wont be affected.