This scheme covers the self-employed and informal workers, including those who take care of children or babies at home.

However, I recently found out that a childminder or babysitter qualifies for the Workfare Bonus only if she is not related to the child she is taking care of in any way.

That means a woman who takes care of her child, grandchild, niece, nephew, grandnephew, grandniece or child of any relative does not qualify for the Workfare Bonus.

Let us consider two grandmothers, each aged 60, who take care of their own grandchild and are paid $500 a month.

Neither of them qualifies for the Workfare Bonus. But if they swop grandchildren with each other, both will receive a Workfare Bonus of about $1,000 a year.

In essence, at least for women who work as childminders or babysitters, this scheme penalises women who take care of their own child, grandchild or relative's child and does little to promote family cohesion.

I would like to know the rationale behind such a policy.

If the aim is to prevent abuse of the system by people who report a very low income to get a higher Workfare Bonus, a cap on the Workfare Bonus can be applied for childminders who take care of a related child. This will be better than denying them any Workfare Bonus.

It can be argued that in families where the child is taken care of by grandparents, there is financial help in the form of income tax relief for the working mother.

But the Workfare scheme is intended to help low-income families and most of these do not pay any income tax.

Among low-income families, it is common for children to be taken care of by relatives or by the mother herself due to the high cost of other childcare options.

The Workfare scheme fails to help this group of people.

Many young children nowadays are taken care of by childminders.

If the childminder is a relative, it is often preferable. In addition to promoting family cohesion, there is a lower chance of child abuse or neglect so parents can go to work with greater peace of mind.

I fail to see any good reason to deny this group of childminders any Workfare Bonus and encourage them to work for other unrelated families when help is needed within the family.

Dr Low Yen Ling