In June came the annual Queen's Speech in parliament and with it confirmation of the government's plans to introduce a new scheme to help working parents with the cost of childcare.

Under the new arrangements, employees will have to choose whether they opt in to a childcare voucher scheme delivered through their employer or the new one run by HMRC.

And because of this ‘use it or lose it' rule, whether your organisation offers childcare vouchers or not, employers who want to attract, retain and support working parents need to start planning now for the new regime.

How should your organisation prepare?

The first area to look at now is the extent to which the changes will impact on your organisation financially.

If you have a childcare voucher scheme in place and employees move to the new scheme in large numbers then this will result in an increase in employment costs as you lose the NI savings you make under the existing childcare voucher scheme. For larger organisations this could run into big numbers.

How will the new scheme impact your employees?

While the headlines around the potential savings from tax-free childcare look attractive, the reality is that many employees paying basic rate tax or whose childcare costs are low, will be worse off under the new scheme.

The combination of this and the ‘lose it or use it' nature of the new regime means that the priority for family-friendly employers is to ensure their employees are in the position to choose the best scheme for them.

So for employers who don't have a childcare voucher scheme in place now, the most important action is to get scheme up and running today.

As well as giving employees the ability to choose the scheme that suits them in Autumn 2015, getting a scheme in place now, will help working parents to start saving money on childcare immediately. Not only that, as an employer, you can make valuable savings on NI which continue as long as you have parents using the scheme.

For employers who have a childcare voucher scheme in place, now is the time to communicate to your working parents about the savings they can make under the existing scheme. This will drive sign ups  from new parents who may be eligible for childcare vouchers, so they are able to choose which scheme suits them best after autumn 2015.

In the meantime, it will be important to keep an eye out on any further changes to the planned new childcare scheme, as the government publishes the results of its current consultation on how it will work when it is launches.

Given the substantial changes we have seen since the initial announcement of the policy in December 2012, we shouldn't rule out further changes which may have an impact on employers.

To speak to a member of the Edenred Team about starting your Childcare Voucher scheme simply call 0843 453 4406 or find out more information and enquire here