New budget - I'm excited!

The big chains are absorbing the costs and biding their time. You are charging illegally if you're using top-ups, but the big nurseries don't seem to play by the rules, especially where profit is concerned.

Of course the bigger chains are expanding. They're not the ones struggling, either. They're revamping their nurseries - I picked up some tables recently that were being thrown out: one of those big nurseries had decided it wanted to change the decor and was simply dumping all their old, perfectly serviceable furniture. It was expensive, top of the range stuff and a staff member had rescued it from the skip to sell.

We have another of those big chain nurseries opening near us. It's being funded by an asset management company. They're charging over £10 an hour, but there are no other places available locally, so parents will have to pay it or stop work.
They're looking for good returns for the shareholders. It's in their interests to wipe out the smaller providers. They don't care about parents, or their staff. Children are money in the bank to them.

The "free entitlement" is really the taxes paid by those smaller providers being used to put them out of business and make fortunes for investors.

tell me about it. Likewise with Labour! Lots of government bashing without looking into the issue more deeply. It’s scary how people lack critical thinking on here!

Some of the last few posts on here have now convinced me that the tories are employing people to post on MN.

I agree that women should be able to work if they want to but when did we describe our kids and caring for them as a burden?? Why are people bothering if the childcare aspect which is literally being a parent is described as a burden.

This is the Tories. .....what they give they will take away

Touched a nerve have I dearie? A lot of people can afford childcare, that’s not my point at all. These people plan how their childcare will work and do the sums beforehand. However, some rush into banging out children they can’t afford, then bleat about the cost and lack of childcare afterwards, like they are a must-have accessory. These are the ones who will be harassing their providers today, and posting on MN about it. There’s the lack of critical thinking that you delightfully alluded to.

It's quite a headline grabber, isn't it? There will be delighted parents across the country imagining affordable childcare - at the moment we're one of the most expensive in the world.

But in 12 months time, when the Tories are dead and gone and some other government is left to pick up the pieces of a desperate attempt to get votes, parents will realise that they can't get a decent place to send their child at all. The only providers who could survive this will do so by increasing ratios, and I imagine the qualification requirements will also be reduced, which will obviously negatively impact the care each child receives.

MN will be filled with posts from people who can't find a nursery place, and there'll be no childminders for people to say "have you considered a childminder?", and posts where parents complain that they're unhappy about the levels of care in nurseries because their child fell over/didn't drink all day/sat in a wet nappy and got horrendous nappy rash.

@dottydarkness because if parents can’t afford to work we lose out on their tax payments, and we need people to have children for the future functioning of society. Keeping mums in work pays way more into the system over time than the cost of supporting with childcare, the data from countries that do this better than us is pretty clear. Such a short sighted and uncritical view.

I’m going to sound like a massive Tory which I’m not, but FFS stop moaning about the cost of childcare for children you willingly have! Why should the state fund your life choices?

Your premise assumes that all the children using the new free hours are currently in childcare, and being paid for at unsubsidised rates by parents.

However, this policy is intended to get parents who are currently not working and therefore not using childcare at all, back into work. Very often the reason they aren’t working is that they wouldn’t be able to afford childcare - even just the ‘extras’ - so they will still be priced out of childcare if government funding continues at the same rate it is paid now.

So the policy is likely to fail from this point of view - even supposing that the spare provision is available in the market, which looks highly unlikely given the current funding situation, and the likely results of this policy on provision.

I’ll make sure our legal team are aware. Thank you!

Unless your top up fees are for consumables and labelled as voluntary then their illegal. Other settings have been taken to court over top up fees. Whilst your chain may be happy to conduct itself this way many other settings are not prepared to put themselves at risk.
Your setting is a rarity that's for sure because every setting I know is doing all it can to survive impending closure.

But we do. And they work pretty effectively. Parents do not tend to challenge these as they understand that th e government is already subsidising them. It’s quite an efficient model

I live in a town where there is now only 1 nursery for under 3s. This is part of a chain, and has a really poor reputation. I pulled my children out of it due to the poor care.

My children then went to a lovely local nursery which then went bust. We saw a whole group of fantastic staff lose their jobs. Another local nursery has just had to close and we are left with pre schools for over 3s only. Childminders are also few and far between.

I'm lucky that my kids are now in school and don't have to worry about this but there are now many parents of under 3s that have no viable options in this town because of the woeful funding. They need to travel miles out of the town, rely on others to help with local school runs for older children, spend a fortune in travel costs or just move out of the area altogether.

I don't see how this "fantastic" idea that the government have (which lets face it is just to pull the wool over people's eyes and claw back popularity) is going to help the situation in my area at all and I'm sure there are many other small towns in the country facing the same problems.

But you shouldn't be using top ups.

The problem is, your situation is very much a rarity and I’m guessing because it’s a large nursery in a chain (apologies if I have that wrong). You are in a minority of settings that have seen a raise in profits.

For full transparency I work in head office for a large childcare provider. We have already been looking at a huge expansion of our nurseries because we anticipated something like this. Our profits were up 11% last year. Demand will always increase supply over time. We don’t use our 1&2 year olds to subsidise the older children. We use top ups instead which we receive positive feedback on. I know it’s tempting to pick apart any new government policy, but believe me in saying this is a game changer for working families.

If you think this will encourage more settings to open I think you need to open your eyes and re read the posts in this threads from those who provide childcare. The crux of this whole situation is years of underfunding which has been subsidised by settings to keep on running, add on the cost of living crisis and settings are doomed. There is not enough availability now for funded hours for 3yr olds let alone expanding it to 1 & 2 yr olds.

This would have been an absolute game changer for me with a young child. Most parents I know happily pay top ups and this will incentivise new nurseries to open. Actually convincing me to vote Tory

@Tanith I wonder if they have been watching too many Pixar movies, especially WALL-E. One organisation owning all provision of services.

May be locality based and of course, depending on whether the nursery is full or not.

We have many ‘governor led’ pre schools in our schools. Checked through age range registration on GIAS compared to the offer of places from 3 years old.

Unfortunately for many schools the nursery funding/teacher post isn't viable. Sadly, a way around it is to change to governor led, removing the requirement for a qualified teacher.

For this to work gov will have to pay the nurseries rather than giving the money to councils to allocate. Some areas may get £5 per hour, others £4 because their local councils decide how to fund it from the pot.

@Livinginanotherworld Every mum of pre-schoolers working full time I know, is absolutely run ragged. No time to cook from scratch, no time to play, no time to relax.

It sounds like you really need to expand your circle.
I work full time hours, finish at 4 with one half day a week due to condensed lunches. I do not feel ‘run ragged’ at all. I have plenty of time to play with my child.

I also don’t understand why you mention that every mum you know who works full time had no time to cook from scratch … is cooking only something a mother has to do? What’s wrong with the dads cooking from scratch?

In my area the demand for childcare outstrips supply. Speaking as a parent I’d take anything my childminder wanted to offer of any provision including nothing. There’s no chance I can move my DC to another provider for the funding… there just wouldn’t be one.
as PP said I’d prefer a voucher to use instead. I don’t want my childminder to decline the scheme because she’d be out of pocket….. Or indeed to do the scheme and be out of pocket. But I would really appreciate the financial help!

I disagree
The ratio means that teaches led provision can often be more financially viable. There are cross over points in the funding linked to ratios but governor led provision would rarely be the solution and is actually pretty unusual. Most schools lower the age range and run the provision with registered pupils.

There are less children nationally. That is the biggest impact on school 3 and 4 year old provision at the moment.