My registration with Ofsted as a Home Childcarer (what Ofsted use to call people who provide childcare in the home of the child, such as nanny) is due for renewal in September. So earlier this month I received an invoice in the post from Ofsted. Ofsted send this out around a month before the renewal date of your registration.
The invoice was sent to my home address, which as a live-out nanny is different to the address at which I work. So if you are due to renew your registration, expect the invoice to be delivered to your home address which Ofsted hold on file. It is important that if you move home that you let Ofsted know, in the same way that you have to tell them if you change the address at which you work.
As my employer uses Childcare Vouchers from Edenred (formally Accord), I was getting reminder e-mails from Edenred that my Ofsted registration was soon to expire, so I knew to expect the invoice from Ofsted.
Paying the invoice is easy to do, it can be paid over the phone using a credit or debit card (in your own name), via BACS, via Bank Giro Credit, sending a cheque, or paying Online. They also offer a Direct Debit scheme.
If your employer uses childcare vouchers, the voucher company (Edenred in my case) requires evidence that you have paid your Ofsted registration fee. They can be fussy about what form that evidence takes, though this year I found that Edenred were happy to accept a PDF of the online receipt produced by the Ofsted Online Payments system.
If you pay using Ofsted Online Payments, then when you get to the confirmation page where it gives you the payment reference number, print out the page. If you use Google Chrome you can print the page directly to PDF, thus storing it on your computer meaning you can easily e-mail it to the voucher company. Once you go past that payment page you can’t get back to it, so it is important to print out the page at the time.
I would NOT suggest that you set up Direct Debit for this kind of payment, as it is not known how the voucher companies would get any evidence that you had paid. You could e-mail Ofsted I suppose and ask them to send evidence of payment but I feel it’s easier if you do it yourself by paying online using the Ofsted Payments system and printing out/saving the payment receipt.
The current fee (2012) is £103 for registration as a Home Childcarer.