In 1984 the Inland Revenue started to tax employer subsidies to workplace nurseries. Under the new rules, employees who earnt more than £8,500 per year were taxed on the value of the childcare they received. The Inland Revenue claimed that this tax had been payable since 1948 (although it had not been enforced previously). This meant people were charged back tax, meaning some parents suddenly faced bills of thousands of pounds.

Kingsway Children’s Centre’s management committe organised a meeting on 13 March 1984 where the Workplace Nurseries Campaign was formed to fight the tax. 

The ten National Association of Local Government Officers (NALGO) employees who used Kingsway Children’s Centre had been the first to be notified. They were told they would have to find £6000 to pay the backdated tax and that their nursery fees would double from April 1984. The Kingsway Children's Centre Management Committee sprung into action.

The first ‘Workplace Nurseries Campaign Bulletin’ listed what they did immediately in response: they had organised an emergency meeting of parents and a meeting for the employers involved in their nursery, launched the Workplace Nurseries Campaign, organised a public meeting of all women’s rights and nursery campaigns on March 24 1984 at Camden Town Hall, persuded the GMB union to put an Emergency Resolution to the TUC Women’s Congress, publicised the campaign and organised TV coverage, started a financial appeal to help parents with the costs of the tax and raised the need for an amendment to the Finance Bill with the Labour Party.

A campaign leaflet wrote that:

‘there are a number of benefits provided or subsidised by employers which are exempt from tax under the 1976 Act. These include canteens, works recreation grounds and sports and social clubs or bars. It is ridiculous that childcare should not be exempt in the same way – childcare is a right not a perk.’

The Morning Star wrote on 2 July 1985 that workplace nurseries were now taxed at five times the rate of company cars. On 27 April 1985 The Times reported that parents at Kingsway Children’s Centre would be taxed on the value of the childcare they received, which was worth £2,760 a year in employer subsidies. In 1989, The Sunday Times reported that a parent at the Kingsway Children's Centre faced a bill of £5,000 for her two children. 

During the campaign's first year it built up an effective support base of affiliates and contacts and generated the most serious parliamentary debate on childcare that there had been for years by tabling an amendment on the 1984 Finance Bill. The proposed amendment was lost but led to some Conservative MPs considering minimising the impact of the tax by reducing the tax rate. The campaign attempted another amendment to the 1985 Finance Bill.

After a year of campaigning they won parents an exemption from the back tax charged up until 6 April 1985, although parents remained liable to pay tax on their childcare from this date. The Inland Revenue wrote in a press release issued on 24 April 1985 that a booklet published by the Equal Opportunities Commission in 1979 had given the ‘mistaken advice’ that the benefit of a workplace nursery was not taxable, and that similar advice had been published in a Which? Tax Saving Guide. This, the Inland Revenue wrote, may have misled employers and employees and so they had decided to stop charging back tax on workplace nurseries and would repay the tax they had already charged. According to the Kingsway Children’s Centre’s annual report in 1984-85 however, it was the Inland Revenue itself who had advised the Equal Opportunities Commission and Which? that workplace nurseries were exempt from taxation.

The campaign group of activists had a diverse range of skills and experiences that enabled the organisation to support and advise groups affected by tax legislation and lobby MPs, business organisations, employers and trade unions.

In 1985 the European Parliament tabled a resolution condemning the tax:

‘[The European Parliament] recognises that the policy of the United Kingdom government runs contrary to the EEC’s whole action programme on the promotion of equal opportunities for women, having as it does a severely adverse effect on women’s employment.’

In May 1986 the campaign established Workplace Nurseries Limited to deal with the growing number of requests for advice and information they received. This allowed the campaign to concentrate on campaigning against the tax and trying to influence childcare policy. In 1987 they had 12 major trade unions affiliated to the Campaign. The National and Local Government Association (NALGO) were supportive and over 50 local NALGO branches affiliated and campaigned for nurseries on a local level. The campaign wrote in their 1986-87 annual report that this showed:

‘that increasingly unions are including childcare facilities in their negotiations. This is also reflected by the interest that the TUC is showing in childcare issues. The TUC Charter has been updated and a major childcare campaign is planned.’

In 1986 the campaign hoped an amendment would be voted on in the 1986 Finance Bill but the Speaker decided not to allow the issue to be debated again, although they did win the support of 35 Conservative MPs.

On 18 May 1987, just weeks before the General Election, the Workplace Nurseries Campaign (together with five other childcare organisations) launched a press release with a ‘vote for children’ plea, calling for children to be given a higher priority by whoever formed the next government. The press release pointed out that across England and Wales only 2.8% of three year olds went to a pre-school establishment full time, compared to 80% in France, and 39.8% of four year olds, compared to 97% in France. In England only 15 local authorities provided nursery places for more than 2% of the under-five population; the highest level was 4.4%, which was provided by the London Borough of Camden. Disappointingly none of the major newspapers chose to cover the press release.

In 1989 The Sunday Times reported that Nigel Lawson, the chancellor, was under increased pressure to change his mind, not only from the campaign and the Equal Opportunities Commission, but from employers who, the paper said, 'have woken up to the fact that the lack of childcare facilities is presenting them with a recruitment crisis.' Midland Bank, for example, had announced plans to open 300 workplace nurseries to allow mothers to go back to work. The Sunday Times article suggested that 'when it comes to working mothers, sheer male chauvinism seems to overrule reason and even, it appears, market forces in the minds of politicians.' Norman Tebbit had recently said on Question Time that mothers should stay at home with young children, while John Patten, the Home Office Minister, had said he didn't think workplace nurseries were a good idea.

The campaign ultimately succeeded. In 1990 a ‘workplace nurseries exemption’ was introduced which made workplace nurseries exempt from tax and national insurance.