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 Fiona Leney advises on the groundrules for ensuring pre-school children get the best possible start to their education.
When it comes to pre-school child care, there is assistance out there, in terms of both helping employees meet the cost and find the care. The key is to consider the type of help the employee needs, the budget involved and the age of the pre-schooler. The first thing is help with funding, and, with a little-known government scheme, it’s possible for employees to pay for childcare from pre-tax income, using vouchers they buy through salary sacrifice.
Childcare vouchers can save parents a lot of money – a basic rate tax payer using the full allocation of childcare vouchers can save £75 per month, and the savings for a higher-rate tax payer are correspondingly greater. The hitch is that employers have to know about, and be willing to buy into, the scheme. Childcare vouchers can actually benefit employers, not only in terms of employee goodwill, but financially, as they don’t pay national insurance on the vouchers.
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 Relocatees often face life in a completely unfamiliar town, region or country, and those with children may find the lack of previous networks of friends and family a particularly daunting prospect. Offering practical ideas and systems of childcare to people with families could be of great comfort and value, and be the defining point of a successful relocation.
Almost 40% of the UK workforce are parents, and many struggle with juggling responsibilities to families with obligations at work. A flexible, family-friendly workplace, coupled with support for childcare costs, is a two-pronged solution to this problem. MI6 is one high profile employer that now uses flexible working and childcare vouchers to attract a new generation of James (and Jane) Bonds. |
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Employers who offer practical support when it comes to helping their staff select and meet the cost of early-years education will go a long way towards winning employee hearts and minds, as Anna Lambert reports  Choosing pre-school childcare will always seem a daunting experience. After all, what’s being anticipated is probably the first experience of long-term separation for children and their parents. Whether parents are looking for full day-care because they’re at work, or nursery for just a couple of hours a couple of sessions a week to help their child socialise, it’s key to the practical and emotional well-being of all concerned that appropriate choices are made. The additional pressures faced by relocating parents – namely the need to ensure that their children settle in quickly to the new environment, and the fact that possible pre-existing family childcare support in the form of, say, grandparents, may have been left behind with the move – mean they will require additional, specialised support.
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