I have been looking at providing Childcare vouchers to staff through a salary sacrifice scheme. However, when I read the Inland Revenue rules on what is considered to be a true salary sacrifice I believe that most staff would be worse off electing to take childcare vouchers. Our company pension contributions and bonus are both calculated as a percentage of salary. When I calculate how much would be lost as a consequence of reducing salary, in almost all cases, this would outweigh the savings made in taking childcare vouchers.

Does anyone have experience of dealing with this issue?

Do we really need to change our policies on the way we pay our bonus and pension to provide effective savings through childcare vouchers? If we do, presumably we would have to do this across the whole company not just for those who would like to take child care vouchers.

I would be grateful if anyone could provide advice or even I would be grateful to hear from anyone who has the same problem.
Lynn Hebb