30 hours for 1.5 year olds and over expected tomorroe

[QforCucumber]

As per the attached! This would help people so much

@Babooshka1990

That's frustrating about stamp duty!

Im a single mom and have twins and a childcare bill of £2k a month so I'd have cried with happiness if they'd said it started next month but I knew deep down it would have to be phased in 😢

It depends how you work it - the 30 hours is term time only anyway so unless you stretch it over 12 months you'd still have months of paying full whack anyway on those weeks which are out of term time

@Babooshka1990 but surely you had your baby based on paying the fees anyway?

DS2 is 2.5 - gets his 30 hours in September for being 3, we've paid FT fees for both children since they were 9 months old. I'm not angry about this because I had to pay.

@QforCucumber we did plan but then all
the other bills went crazy, and our wages didn’t keep up with inflation. That’s neither here no there is it, why should some miss out?

@QforCucumber I had my baby based on wanting a child

ok - why should I miss out for having my baby 2.5 years ago?

It's a bizarre way to approach it, you will still benefit. Everyone's bills have gone crazy.

There is absolutely no way in hell they'd have been able to administer it in 3 weeks - even when I started the thread I wholly expected to not benefit but can acknowledge that it is a great step forward.

The 15 hours was brought in 2010, the 30 hours 2017. I’m sure people thought it wasn’t fair then for people who just missed out 🤷🏼‍♀️

Why should it be backdated?

You choose to have a child and take your circumstances into account when you do that.

Should you be able to buy a dodo egg too because you missed out on that?

Dodo egg? 🧐

Sorry to post here, does anyone know whether the child is entitled to the 15 hour childcare if parent earns over 100K and whether this new policy will extend this 15 hours to 1 and 2 year olds as well?

Currently, every 3 and 4 year old child is entitled to 15 hours (not the extra 15 if earning over £100000). At the moment no one knows the rules around the new budget or fully how it will be delivered as yet.

@Babooshka1990

There is no guarantee you'd even be able to find a funded place anyway? Many childminders and nurseries will just say no - there is no legal requirement to offer those places. plenty already don't offer 15/30 hours because they won't want the hassle of the payments or because they simply don't need to because demand far outstrips the number of places where some people live

I suspect todays announcement is a total dud. There will be a huge clamour for spaces next September and the majority of parents will be told - sorry I don't offer funded places and the parents will have no choice but to either accept or stay home just like they do currently

It's frustrating (and I'll be honest I've had a few moments of feeling bitter paying around thousands in childcare for my DD when she was 1 and 2!) but something needed to give!

My DD is 4 now and will be going to school in September so we have benefitted from the 30 free hours for the last year or so but to be honest we were paying about 900/950 a month for 4 days a week. Next month due to nursery fee increases and with the 30 free hours it's still just short of 800 so the prices have gone mental even since 3 years ago. It is definitely still going to be a struggle for those with children almost at the 9 month age now though :(

Sorry meant to say 900/950 a month when DD was 1/2 with no free hours

@tiantian1005 the extension of the hours will only apply to working parents, so both parents working at least 16 hours. I haven’t seen anything about those earning over 100k

Thank you to both that replied! Exactly I have not seen any notes around whether 100K earners will quality for the extension. I am so excited if we get anything free as never expected anything

My daughter started school in September but before that I was paying £1500 a month. Do o get a refund? Ridiculous thing to suggest.

And too much risk to children.

LA retained money pays to safeguard children, through training, through support and checks. If you'd seen what I have seen in settings you wouldn't be moaning about the money! ( baby's in cots with blind cords hanging, dangerous play equipment, unsafe recruitment, water trays beside a source of electricity etc etc.)

Safeguarding includes safer recruitment training to ensure the staff that are chosen to look after your child are checked out fully.

LA’s also strategically plan places for coverage. In popular areas this prevents surplus places and the risk of providers going to the wall. It also plans for new providers where there are no available places and provides sparsity funding out of the pot for rural areas where providers would just not be of a size to be viable.

LA’s provide support to improve, develop and sustain quality.

I could go on....

This! This policy or scheme or whatever you want to call it was announced 4 hours ago. What was your plan for childcare a year ago when you found out you were expecting? What was your plan for childcare a week ago before hearing about what they might have been announcing in the budget? @Babooshka1990

Kicks in exactly when my child starts school 🙄

None of the training provided by the LAs is free and nor do they inspect nurseries. They are utterly useless in my experience, including the LADOs.

This.

I strongly doubt they'll pull this off even with a couple of years notice actually, but it would be utterly impossible to bring in such massive reform starting now.

• QforCucumber @Babooshka1990 but surely you had your baby based on paying the fees anyway?

DS2 is 2.5 - gets his 30 hours in September for being 3, we've paid FT fees for both children since they were 9 months old. I'm not angry about this because I had to pay.

This! This policy or scheme or whatever you want to call it was announced 4 hours ago. What was your plan for childcare a year ago when you found out you were expecting? What was your plan for childcare a week ago before hearing about what they might have been announcing in the budget? @Babooshka1990*

I'm loving how society has a solved so we can plan like this. So you get pregnant then calculate what other person (usually woman) will look after your child. How much you will pay them. As you work to either pay the childcare or...OH! In 2024...the tax bill.

Locality dependent maybe.

Free training here.

LA’s do not inspect. I did not say they do. That is OFSTED’s role.
They do support, monitor and challenge practice, especially to keep children safe.

Safeguarding is a statutory duty, as deemed by the government. There has to be funding to meet this.

You mentioned LADO’s - another LA cost. Ours are great in supporting investigations around incidents by adults, again keeping children safe.

In my borough, safeguarding is the remit of the social work team - early years have very little involvement. Referrals are made directly to the front door team and child protection meetings and conferences are arranged by the social workers. The early years team deal with funding and they pass on information about training (which the nurseries have to pay for) and various classes (toilet training, etc) for parents.

The 20 odd percent that they skim off the funding and keep for themselves would be put to far better use to make the funding stretch further, in my opinion. Of course safeguarding is a priority, but children’s services are not funded by early years money. Similarly, nurseries have to be inspected, but that, like you say, is Ofsted’s remit. So where’s the justification for the LAs cut of the money for early years childcare?