Like many other working parents, I utilise the childcare vouchers scheme. It's great, it means I don't pay tax on that money and it can go straight to my childminder - easy and beneficial to everyone. I am reliably told that for those of us in the lower tax bracket this could be a saving of around £500 a year - more if you have two people who qualify for the vouchers.
However, what about single parents? They can only claim the maximum of £243 of childcare vouchers a month, no matter how much childcare they have to pay for or how many children they have. So where both my husband and I could claim, single parents wouldn't have that opportunity. Also, what if your childcare comes to more than double the allowed amount anyway? You pay for the rest yourself, obviously therefore taxed.
With the government apparently committed to a review of childcare, and improving options for parents, surely this would be a good place to start. Busy Bees have an online petition to raise the Childcare Voucher cap from £55 to £75 a week. To be honest, I'm not sure about the implications of this, and I haven't fully researched it myself. But I do think that the process should be up for some kind of review, the £243 cap seems quite abitrary, and doesn't seem to take into account individual situations which can be the difference in working or not for many parents.
If you want to sign, the link is here - remember to then open your email and click the link. 100,000 signatures will make this issue eligible for debate in the House of Commons.
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