What are busy bees childcare vouchers?

Busy bees childcare vouchers are now widespread across the whole of the UK and are excellent as a way for employees with children at nurseries and other pre school activities to save tax of anything up to £100 a month. The money is deducted from your gross salary each month by the employer which means you save PAYE and Employees national insurance as well as your employer saving on employers national insurance also. You can buy up to £243 of busy bees childcare vouchers in any one month. When you look at all this it is well worth doing. We all pay enough taxes as it is so any chance to save having to spend anymore is much appreciated! Get your busy bees childcare vouchers now!

The main attraction of using Busy Bees over all the rest of the childcare voucher providers is that they are the more established and therefore their childcare centres are more flexible in what they can offer. The options available are:

- as a creche just for a few hours to give the parents a rest for a few hours.

- Half day or full day sesions.

- Many offer after school clubs or school holiday clubs.

Recent busy bees child care voucher developments

Busy Bees have recently been taken over by a company called Computershare and from my recent personal experience and from what I have heard from others that the recent takeover has meant there have been a fair few hiccups! Busy bees is busy bees no more when it comes to child care vouchers. I think the initial problems were down to computer glitches so we will see if these problems escalate any further. 

They sometimes keep people holding on the phone for up to 30 minutes before getting through to anyone is no way to have good customer service. Indeed the busy bees trading name has been tarnished in such a short space of time.

If going for the busy bees childcare vouchers option you need to way up your own personal circumstances first as some people may be better claiming extra child care vouchers or working tax credits. If in doubt you should really get independent advice with an organisation such as the Citizens Advice Bureau as they should tell you which is the better option for you.

Apparantly there are other providers out there who administer childcare vouchers but for some reason Busy Bees have been able to monopolise the market. However might be a good idea to look around and see what the alternatives are available to busy bees.

Importance of childcare

Sending your children to nursery is a very important part of their "character building" and ability to interact with other young children in their formative years. This is why these childcare vouchers and the people who are administering them need to be doing so in a reponsible manner. I have heard of instances where you can go and get the necessary childminding qualification yourself, where you wouldn't need to go back to work and instead look after your children as well as other peoples and get paid for doing so. This is a very good alternative to having to send your children to nursery.

Other peoples experiences of childcare vouchers and nurseries

I'd love to hear from other people and find out what their experiences are of childcare vouchers and also how imporatant they think pre school activities are to a child's education. If you have any opinions on them, please feel free to add a comment at the bottom of my hub.

Childcare Vouchers - The Future for Busy Bees?

This is the big question at the moment as to whether these vouchers are staying or going. Gordon Brown thinks that people who are using them can afford childcare without them. The current plans are to have them removed by 2011 and use the extra money to be used to fund further nursery places. These would be open to the families who really need them. The question has to be asked with the removal of childcare vouches such as busy bees, is this going to mean the labour party losing more votes to the middle classes?

It is not just nursery care that these vouchers can be used for they can e used to pay for registered childminders, holiday clubs, etc for any children up to the age of up to 16.

Indeed over sixty thousand people have now signed a petition against the plans by the labour government. Does anyone know what the Conservatives policies are towards childcare vouchers, if they were to get into government as is looking more and more likely the closer we get to a general election?

What would be the future of childcare voucher providers such as Busy Bees? With this being the only business they are involved in, they would have to shut down wouldn't they?

The other question that has to be asked that if childcare vouchers were abolished are we not encouraging parents who are currently working not to give up their jobs? Surely this can't be good for the UK as a whole? The government really need to think about this before they go ahead with the plans they have at the moment in scrapping the scheme.

What you can do outside of the nursery environment

There are however some things that a parent can do outside of the busy bees childcare environment, which can effect a child's behaviour now and in the years to come. There are many schools of thought out there as to how influential a child can be and at what ages. It can be seen that if you don't take your responsibilities as a parent seriously in the childs early years then the child may struggle with behavioural problems later on. These problems in small numbers can lead to teenagers getting into trouble with the law, which leads to other more serious problems.

To find out more about advice on parenting toddlers in a "Talking to toddlers" audio course, please visit my website shown below:

www.busybeessite.com