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Daycare or not daycare, that is the question!

Jennifer has verified and one of our two vacant buildings if suitably modified could easily be transformed into a daycare.  She even had the contractor, who is working on the new farm, have a look and price the work.  Jennifer told me that he would check the building codes for daycare to see if the building could meet the requirements.  Our contractor did say that one advantage these buildings have is that neither has acceptable plumbing, electricity or heating for any modern use.  

The next question is do we have enough children and can the daycare meets our requirements.  Let's not forget that pickers are done by noon.  If staff works on the farm in the afternoon, then we have a shift issue.  There are all kinds of complications (aside from finding the appropriately trained staff).  Enterprise-specific daycares have additional issues they have to look at, but it remains that more than half of our workers are women and the great majority are of childbearing age.  

Even if it's free to the employees, in the UK daycare provided by the employer is considered a taxable benefit.  Most of the young women who work for us currently use informal daycare (family) or semi-legal daycare (which creates a lot of anxiety among young mothers) which operate outside the tax system and therefore don't create additional tax liabilities.

These are all issues we have to address.  

One funny aspect is that two of our mechanics (men) approached Jennifer when they heard we were considering having daycare on-site.  That's the other benefit of having daycare on site, parents can take a break and have short visits with their children (or at least see them in their activities). 

As an employer the analysis is complex.  No doubt having daycare will allow us to retain or even attract employees to the farm.  Aside from the warehousing staff most of our employees are young.  We have to be clear that our daycare meets a real need (as opposed to wishful thinking), and that it adds up.  There is a lot of government money available for enterprise daycare, but we are reluctant to base our decision on handouts.   Because they can be transitory.

Jennifer and our ecologist are conducting a survey of all our staff to see where things stand, and she told me that she contacted the local job centre to find out the demand and supply of level 2 & 3 daycare workers.  I told Jennifer that we want to make a decision before the end of the month.

Note:  Posted for two minutes and already have five comments...The UK government does not have an exemption for "free" childcare, there was a provision in the past but it was phased out in 2017.  Even then providing daycare to children is a taxable benefit in the UK.  One of the reasons is that it is a way to help non-enterprise daycare providers remain competitive (where the parents pay the full cost upfront).  Yes, it sounds stupid and yes it's a great way of discouraging employers from providing daycare.  I suspect that UNISON had a lot to do with that change in legislation.  90% of employer-provided daycare are un-unionized whereas 99% of commercial daycare are unionised.  Call it protecting members if you want!


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