It is astonishingly unfair when you look at the other side of it.
A child living in poverty is eligible for 15 hours free childcare from the age of 2.
When they turn three, their richer peer gets 30 hours free childcare, but the child living in poverty still gets only 15 hours.
I posted on this a while ago on MN and was really shocked that so many agreed with the system because of the argument that non-working parents don’t need childcare. The reason those children are offered 15 hours at the age of two is to close the attainment gap that correlates so closely with poverty in the UK (and elsewhere) - it is quite difficult to get a job that fits inside 15 hours of childcare, so it doesn’t serve all that effectively as a ‘back to work’ scheme.
I had posted because, as a governor in a nursery, a child on a child protection plan (at significant risk of abuse), was not eligible for more than 15 hours. A social services case worker could have awarded 30 hours, apparently, but that wasn’t happening. Their wealthier peer, however, got 30 hours and a (paid for by parents, but inexpensive) hot meal (As governors, we had a policy that we would use the school’s budget to fund free school meals for the children whose parents earned below the FSM threshold in a primary school setting, but because the children from lower income backgrounds were only in for 3 hours a day, they missed the chance of getting the funded lunch). Even worse, during Covid, the 15 hour children were ‘bubbled’ in one room and the 30 hour children were put in another, so we had segregation by parental income.
I was chastened to learn from that MN thread that I started (… and from the board of governors on which I was sitting), that this is not considered unfair by many and is not the cause of the moral outrage that I had thought it would be.
Not much of a solution for OP, but it is my opinion that the highest income threshold on this scheme is generous (and that it is the poorest who should be funded 30 hours).