fee direct
@ your workplace

Fee Direct @ Your Workplace allows an employer to set up a dedicated childcare facility on or near its own premises. The facility is owned by the employer; Buffer Bear manages the nursery on a day-to-day basis, with employer representation on a management commitee.

As a Workplace Nursery any salary that is sacrificed to pay for a place at the nursery is exempt from employees National Insurance and tax. The employer is also exempt from National Insurance contributions on the salary sacrificed, and can offset the costs of providing, and contributing to the financing of, the nursery against tax.

Workplace Nurseries require a significant level of long-term commitment and are generally found in larger organisations.

The main advantage of a Workplace Nursery is that the employer has considerable influence over how, where and when the childcare is made available – this can be particularly important for employers such as NHS trusts where many employees are working shifts.
 
Calculator for employee + employer tax / NI benefits»
Please click here to email Bethan Parry at Buffer Bear for a password to access the calculator spreadsheet
 
 
 
pros...
• Dedicated facility set up to meet the specific needs of the workforce and employer
• Parents can be close to their child during the working day and can visit them during breaks
• Maximum tax benefits possible
• Employer has considerable influence over the service provided
• Parents do not need to make a separate journey to take their child to the nursery
cons...
• Requires a high level of commitment
from the employer
• Many parents prefer the child to be in a nursery near to where they live rather than where they work
• Harder to respond to changing demand for childcare
 
By entering into a partnership with Buffer Bear to set up the facility employers can ensure that their Workplace Nursery is professionally established, staffed and managed. Depending on the partnership agreement, Buffer Bear can also share some of the financial risk.

Buffer Bear will advise on the best solution for the size of workforce and budget available, and use its professional experience to provide high quality childcare that is specifically tailored to the needs of the employer and the workforce.
 
case study 1
n 1999 Buffer Bear was selected by competitive tender to manage the NHS Trust’s first workplace nursery at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. Buffer Bear worked with the Trust to develop Fee Direct for its employees.

In launching the Government’s consultation on childcare with employers in 2003 Paymaster General, Dawn Primorolo, said,

 “ This nursery is an excellent example of an employer helping staff to meet their childcare needs and provides first-rate support to vital public sector workers.”

In 2003 the Trust opened a further nursery with Buffer Bear on its Barts site.
 
 case study 2
In April 2000, Buffer Bear took over the management of Westminster City Council Day Nurseries previously managed by a direct service organisation within the Council. The partnership with Westminster has enabled places for  children in need to be offered alongside those for employers and individual parents in the community.

The Council itself has established an Employer Partners Affordable Childcare Scheme for its employees in partnership with Buffer Bear, using Fee Direct, and this can continue through Buffer Bear's on-going management of childcare on Council-owned premises.

The partnership model offers flexibility combined with high quality (all Buffer Bear nurseries have input from qualified teachers, over 80% of staff are qualified, and staff turnover is half the national average).
 
case study 3
Mayday University NHS Trust decided that it needed an on-site nursery in 1998, as a result of the findings of a working group set up to investigate how staff might be better supported to balance work and family responsibilities.

The recommendations of the study were adopted by the Trust Board and a business case was established for the project, based on the urgent need to recruit more permanent staff, particularly nursing staff, in order to reduce agency costs. Affordability is such a key factor in providing accessible childcare that the business case included a subsidy for lower paid employees, which decreased with increasing level of remuneration.

In 1999, Buffer Bear was selected in competitive tender to manage the conversion of an old ward within the hospital and to run the nursery thereafter. A Management Committee was established to ensure that Buffer Bear continued to work in partnership with the Trust to deliver a high quality, affordable service, and that places were allocated in line with the needs of the Trust. This meets three times a year, but on a day-to-day basis, close liaison between the local Nursery Manager and the Human Resource department ensures that priority is given to the needs of employees recruited for intensive care, A&E, and general nursing.

After six months, the nursery had filled up in most age-groups, was meeting its budgetted targets, and most important of all, was showing clear evidence of delivering the business case for the Trust. New recruits for vital, previously unfilled posts, had chosen to work for this Trust in preference over others because of the on-site nursery.

‘ Buffer Bear has helped us to fill vacant, hard-to-recruit posts and retain nursing staff through childcare provision.’ Mayday University NHS Trust
 
case study 4
In 1998, Buffer Bear opened a new Buffer Bear nursery at Tadworth in Surrey in partnership with The Children’s Trust, a charitable trust providing care for brain-damaged children. The hospital was undergoing a programme of expansion, and needed to be in a good position to recruit the staff that it needed to provide 24-hour intensive care and rehabilitation for its increasing number of patients. Its previous 12-place on-site nursery would not have been able to accommodate the increased demand.

Buffer Bear helped with the design of the modular building, and equipped and staffed the new facility. A teacher was introduced for the pre-school unit, and the hours of opening were extended so as to accommodate better the hospital shifts. In order for the nursery to be viable, especially during the build-up phase, Buffer Bear promoted the existence of the provision to the local community, and to its other Employer Partners, some of whom have staff living in the neighbourhood. Although the nursery is for the children of staff working at the Trust, children who are patients at the hospital attend several sessions each week, to take advantage of the resources that the nursery can offer.

The nursery has been very popular with The Children’s Trust employees, and has increased its registered numbers in order to accommodate more children. By its second year, it was handing over some revenue to the Trust through the profit-capping mechanism.
 
case study 5
Buffer Bear was chosen in 2002 to manage the on-site nursery at Springfield Hospital in Tooting for South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust. A recent impact study by the SW London NHS Strategic Health Authority and the childcare consultancy 4 Children found that 92% of staff who responded to the survey said that NHS childcare support had helped them to continue to work for the NHS. The study also estimated annual savings to the Trust from the nursery to be over £700,000 pa.

97% of respondents rated the quality of chidcare as good or excellent, and the following are representative quotations from Springfield Nursery parents:

" Genuine meaningful service that makes a huge impact on NHS staff with children" (NHS Primary Care Manager) and   "I would not be able to work without this nursery - its essential"  (Clinical Psychologist)
 
   
 
 
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