Free childcare - a farce?

17% is just so low isn’t it… especially if people have made decisions based off this as you say

Only way it can work is if government fund it
properly, which they aren’t doing. Nurseries can’t afford to take any more financial hit - coming from someone who used to work in early years

Honestly it’s going to seriously affect how many people have kids. It’s a huge problem.

Anyone earning 25-45k is going to be hit hardest by this - unless they have family members willing to help out care for DC.

We are in our 20s, TTC and the sheer cost of childcare is a reason why we’ll probably stop at one. Even if you wait till your eldest is in school, you’ve still then got to find pretty much £1500 a month for full time care for youngest and probably then wraparound care for the eldest. Don’t fancy paying £1500 a month for childcare for 8-9 years consecutively. You’d not afford anything.

I didn’t realise it was optional but my sons nursery doesn’t offer any free/funded hours for any age group. I overheard one of the parents asking as her daughter was turning 3 and the staff said she is welcome to send her to another nursery for the 30 free hours and then keep her at the current place if she needs extra days. The plus side(?) of this is that the staff retention is excellent (all staff have been there for at least 8 years with older staff for 10 years) and the teaching and care is excellent too as they can afford to pay staff a good wage

You can have children and then circumstances change for the worse. Just saying. Here's your medal by the way.

I can't see this happening in any meaningful way. Parents will end up paying the same amount as before (e.g £600 a month) but instead of previously the fees being £600/month it'll be 'total cost now £900, funded childcare pays £300, shortfall is £600' or similar.

I'm hoping that in effect nurseries may have a bit more as they will increase fees but also get a subsidy which may help pay for staff and overheads/sundries etc. Maybe this is wishful thinking.

100% if labour get in this will be tapered at a frustratingly low level (like child benefit which tails off from £50k). I will still vote labour but again this will skew heavily towards those on much lower incomes, rightly or wrongly.

Childcare is a hideous time. We are just out- youngest started school preschool this september so monthly costs dropped from £1000 a month to £250 for both for wraparound. I'd love for it to improve but I don't hold out much hope and I feel angry for how financially screwed we were for those early years.

Do you feel the same about pensions? Because the working population are paying the state pension of the retired, and are fairly likely never to get a useful state pension themselves. Why should taxpayers subsidise the lifestyles of those who never bothered getting a private pension?

What about health care? There are plenty of people who burden the NHS by being fat or smoking or playing sports. Why should anyone else subsidise their life choices?

oh yeah, because that’s what society does. We don’t just pay for what we believe in or use personally.

The kids of today are the taxpayers of tomorrow. We need them to keep our society going.

Unless we import more workers, but somehow I’m guessing you’re not keen on that, either…

Also, there is a ton of evidence to show that pre-school is massively beneficial to children, and reduces the need for (more expensive) interventions and support in later education. Thats why even horribly republican states in the US tend to have pre-k programmes.

finally, it also means more women (for it is usually women) can reenter the workforce - again, good thing for society and the economy.

Don’t be fooled into thinking the government does this for altruistic reasons - the sums stack up. More money for childcare = more money in the economy

@Hbh17 👌 cool story.

The childcare sector has said repeatedly they can’t afford it so it’s so bizarre that people aren’t listening.

Just because the government are saying it’ll be offered doesn’t mean spaces will be available.
I mean, the government could offer free childcare from 8-6 daily with all meals included, but that’s not the same as the places actually being available.

this is going to end up like respite funding imo. We have access to a very generous respite budget for our DD. It ticks lots of boxes of what he’ll we’ve been offered. Means fuck all as there are no places we can spend it, but it looks good on paper.

It's not "free".
It's not "the Government" who pay for it - it's taxpayers.
Any public contribution you do receive is something to be appreciated, as other people are therefore paying towards your lifestyle choice to have children - some people choose NOT to have children because they know they can't afford them.

@Decembersunset The fees increased 50% in 5 years since my eldest went to the same nursery while my salary increased maybe 15%, but effectively less as I have to pay 40% for any increase.

Our nursery has increased by 40% in 18 months 😭

I saw the 17% statistic the other day and messaged our nursery to ask, they are still discussing it as they don't have the details yet from the government. I think the main issue is the lack of understanding, I've had to explain to several other parents it's not free it's reduced and some friends made decisions to have children on the offer of "free" childcare. I'm hoping we get it as currently after nursery fees I earn £95 a month 😭 (Obviously DH pays too, but just as figure of me working vs staying home)

Where I live, the local authority did that. They wouldn't pay the £ to parents, but paid £X directly to the nursery and we paid the difference

Yeah, honestly people seem not to be getting this. The money supplied for the funded hours is not, in itself, enough to actually fund them. Privately paid hours make up the shortfall, whether from the same parents or others.

Our nursery sent the letter outlining the new fees. So now we pay 1300 a month, they will charge now 1400 and if you use "funded" hours you pay 1200. As we are not entitled to get the funded hours we will have to pay 1400 to sponsor those using free hours. Absolutely ridiculous. The fees increased 50% in 5 years since my eldest went to the same nursery while my salary increased maybe 15%, but effectively less as I have to pay 40% for any increase.

A friend’s childminder has said that if the full funded hours are rolled out she will have to start asking parents for a suggested ‘voluntary contribution’ or she will go bust and have to fold. So I’m sure there are ways of wording what is essentially top up fees. I actually really feel childcare providers currently given the massive uncertainty this has caused.

Unless someone complains about it the LA will often just ignore it as they know nurseries can’t afford not to

The one here that left scheme charged top ups until someone complained and they were forced to stop. So they pulled out all together as they say it’s not affordable to offer a quality service and offer funded places with no top ups

£2,356.20 a month in Highgate, North London (no funding) 😭

many settings are using the money paid by the 0-2’s to cover the shortfall in the funding so they won’t be able to offer it without going busy

Hmmm...I guess there must be ways of framing the extra fees so they can circumvent the legislation as that's exactly what our nursery does.

It isn’t free, it’s funded by the taxpayer. Nothing is actually ever free in life. This is just an extension of the funded hours they already offer so there’s no reason why settings wouldn’t accept this imo.

@Londonscallingme Nurseries are not supposed to charge any top up fees other than optional fees for optional add-ons, it's supposed to be possible to access the funded hours as genuinely free. Most nurseries balance the books by relying on overcharging for the paid hours so that the underfunded free hours don't trigger bankruptcy. As underfunded free hours get closer to full time for all ages it becomes less viable to make this balance, because the subsidising paid-hours will shrink towards nothing.

If your nursery is treating the funded hours as a "discount" they are acting illegally

It goes somewhere way to explaining the "we struggle on £100k" posts! I know London nurseries were expensive..

At my nearest nursery, admittedly term time only... an 8.00-5.30 day costs £7 for a child with 30hrs funding.

Thank you for clarifying. It’s a total minefield…

Do you know anything about childcare? 2k a month isn’t unheard of.

The amount is set by the LA, so it differs. And the gov pays each LA different amounts... and some LAs are greedy or skint and take more than they should before passing it on to settings...