To be quite angry about proposed changes to 3-4yo childcare- only for ALL working parents?

[AcademicOwl]

Ok, Queen's speech.
Proposal to increase 'free'* childcare to 30hrs for 3-4 year olds.

BUT only if all parents working.

As I understand, the current provision for 3-4 yo there are no caveats re parents working. So ok for SAHMs & SAHDs. Gives children chance to socialise pre-school, parents to find feet again and possibly find work.

I've got 2 DC under 5, and worked 3 days a week, so understand costs of childcare (I.e. Two in childcare = more than I earn by about £200pcm). Expecting DC 3 in Oct, so was considering a year out on a career break... Help make costs manageable, support family whilst they are titchy, etc. but DC 2 prob wouldn't be eligible for 'free' childcare if I do that.

Can't help but feel this is discriminating against SAHPs & again undervaluing the importance of parenting choices and the family unit...

What'd you want to bet they'll remove current 'free' provision?

*'free' because in our patch it isn't. The nursery work out how much money it contributes to your monthly bill, then you have to make up difference.and, yes, they are allowed to do that... I investigated at length a couple of years ago.

Grrrr!!!!

I had 3 under 15 months.It was my choice.Sorry twins aside I don't think the state should be responsible for families who choose to have children close together in age.Stagger your family,save before ttc or have the family you can afford.

Yy to means testing.

Sovery and headin, would you have rather had a lower tax bill overall than extra help with childcare?

Oh and we have only 1 dc and a dc that is here through all school holidays only. We decided not to have another dc because we cannot go back to 'living' how we have over the past 3 years, we just can't afford another child.

15 hours for sahp is plenty. It's a good starter and foundation for all kids. That won't change.

Increasing it for up to 30 for working parents is excellent. It should enable more parents who want to work to be able to do so.

I can't see the problem? If you are on jsa etc you get nursery place at 2. I assume the logic of that is so people on esa/pip can catch a break and people on jsa can look for work. If you have to pay a fulltime nursery place it can mean a huge amount of minimum wage/low paid jobs simply aren't viable. I do think there should be a cap on the extra 15 hours though so anyone earning high end wages doesn't auto get that top up.

Op, I would wait for the detail to become clear before coveting these 30 free hours.

The scanty information so far indicates that it's something I would never want to inflict on my child.

I agree with sovery that I would be grateful for any help offered, in whatever form it came.

We budgeted very carefully before ttc then had it all planned when I was pregnant. All of this was completely irrelevant as the MIL let us down massively in the first couple of months of me being back at work so had no choice but to increase nursery time.

To the question of the cost of childcare versus earnings: I'm a teacher earning what I would say is a good salary of around £36000. Take off pension, ni, tax, student loan and I'm left with £1900 a month. 2 under nursery age with my (relatively cheap!) childminder would be £1400 a month, meaning I'm working myself to the bone to earn £500 after paying for double childcare. DH earns £1400 so I suppose we could say that he might as well stay at home, but if he stayed at home, I wouldn't want him to turf the kids out to nursery for 30 hours, because it would mean he was doing absolutely nothing all day!

For financial reasons, we have decided to spread our children out, and will be waiting until dd is eligible for her 15 hours before having our next. The 30 hours would be fantastic for us, especially if we could have 15 hours of preschool education, and 15hours with the childminder to reduce our bill.
To my mind, if you're not working because you want to spend more time with your little ones while they're small, then you shouldn't want them out of the house for 30 hours a week, but if you're not working for financial reasons then you'll be able to use these 30 hours to get back into full time work. Very simple really

I'm a SAHM and agree that I don't need 30 hours a week childcare. But I also strongly hope that the government aren't planning to sacrifice the universal 15 hours a week early years education to achieve the 30 hours childcare.

We were aware that DS struggles socially and kept raising it with the HV. But it was only when he went to pre-school and they backed up my concerns that things started to be taken seriously and he was finally referred to a paediatrician to begin the process of an ASD diagnosis. And in the meantime, going to pre-school regularly has helped him enormously. Yes, I took/take him to groups and meet up with friends but he is too anxious to join in till near the end. Whereas the familiarity and regularity of the pre-school and its routines works much better for him.

It is because if a family have made a choice to have a parent at home, then that is to care for the child or children and this paid childcare is not seen to be needed

This.

I don't see the problem? There'll still be the free 15 hours for 3 year olds.

And also, of course that's free, but you pay for whatever you use over and above the 15 hours pw. So I don't understand your snark about the nursery billing you.
Goodness, there was no such thing as anything free when my DS was little. We aid & aid, because I needed to keep my career going. It was a long-term investment in all sorts of ways: my son's well-being (as he was/is an only), my career, my sanity, and - when my DH died unexpectedly - the only way I could keep going.

If you choose to be a SAHP, then it's assumed you're doing the child care, and don't need assistance. I thought that was obvious to anyone. And no, it doesn't discriminate against SAHPs -- it's offering a much-needed break for parents who need to work outside the home, and who pay a lot for child care.

Does anybody know if their is a disclaimer for partners of working parents who are carers or incapacitated( or in prison) like there is with working tax credits ? If not then you are not unreasonable and I will be talking to my MP.

Just generally, I think we should all (including the government) think of childcare as an investment: for families, it's an investment in parents' careers, for the child, socialisation, exposure to other people, cultures etc, for society generally, there's a lot of research showing that high quality early years care helps to raise balanced, responsible young people. Especially for children in impoverished (financially, educationally) or chaotic homes.

So the 15 hours for any child, without looking at working status of parents, is an excellent thing. A pity that SureStart was cut ...

And I never get why women look at childcare costs as coming out of their wages and then use that as an excuse not to return to work. Surely childcare is a family cost, not just the mother's?

Sahm. I think its a great idea.

I am probably the least Tory person you'll ever meet, but i still think this is a good thing.

Yes, we chose to have kids knowing we'd need childcare, but it's still a massive drain on our finances. There's no way one of us could stay home, even if we wanted to (which I don't).

This will give me a year and a half where the pressure isn't quite so high. That's going be fantastically helpful. I can then put the money I'm saving back into the economy. Win win.

I think it's great - and am anything but a Tory. I had 3 under 5 in childcare at one point that cost way above my salary - and got into serious debt, I did it, however, as investment in my future career as I would have struggled to return at the level I was when I returned following mat leave.

The free hours would have made an enormous difference, esp as my nursery did as yours and so shaved about £150 off the cost per month - not that much.

Another thing they could do is allow the childcare vouchers per child - it's ridiculous that £243 between three kids is nowhere near as useful as £243 per child.

As a previous sahm I feel that govt policies are not sahm friendly especially the unfairness of child benefit.

why is child benefit unfair to sahm?

Whatever they are planning, I doubt very much you will simply claim for the free hours with your chosen childcare provider.

While we're having fun speculating, let's put all those hints together and see what we can come up with

It's 30 free hours during school hours only.

The Government has already proposed changing the childcare ratios under the coalition and had to drop it when Nick Clegg intervened at the 11th hour.

The Government are keen to put ever younger children into schools (Gove and Wilshaw were particularly keen).

Gyimah (Early Years minister) has previously said there is no funding issue and that more settings should introduce 1:13 ratios to address any shortfall.

Providers have said they cannot afford to offer 30 free hours at the current funding levels. Their concerns have been dismissed (see above) -perhaps because they're not expected to offer it? There has been a half hearted promise to look at the funding.

Any ideas?

UptheChimney your post is a great example of government propaganda having its desired affect.
How about investing in families so mothers can afford to stay at home to raise there own children at least till school age if they so wish. This could partially be done by allowing couples to share a tax allowance so 20k per couple. Then increase CB to families not using the 30 free hours.

And single parents, Soon?

I'm lost as to how you interpreted Chimney's post in that way I must admit.

Another 'oldie' here ... We had to pay every single penny of childcare as our children were born before any free hours were available, and before tax credits existed. Like others have said, just because WOHP have managed, it doesn't mean it was easy. Nursery fees nearly broke us - and we were two professionals, who didn't rush into having kids, we planned our family and both had good jobs, but it was still a massive financial drain.

Long term a very good investment- not just for us as a family, by enabling our children to go to an excellent nursery and enabling us to both remain in our careers, but also for wider society- we are both trained professionals working in socially very necessary roles.

I can't relate to this 'sour grapes' attitude whereby some people begrudge others having something which they themselves don't need. Like I said, the tens of thousands of pounds we paid in childcare came out of our own taxed income, but I don't begrudge the help that parents get now. I know how tough, but also how important it is, to enable parents to keep a foothold in the working world, and this policy is about making this achievable for more parents

Going back to my Manchester example. Every 3 year old is already entitled to 30 hours weekly term time in a school based nursery (thus has been the case for decades). Manchester has very poor school results in comparison to neighbouring Trafford and Stockport so clearly providing this 30 free hours is not raising the academic levels of the children. So given that providing free early years education doesn't seem to work in the way intended what exactly is it's purpose other than free childcare?

That's really not the appropriate way to look at it superexcited. If you know the City of Manchester well, you'll know that it contains some quite stunning levels of deprivation, considerably more so that the relatively affluent Trafford and Stockport (both of which have their own very deprived pockets, so it tells you something about how well heeled the naicer parts are). All the early years provision on the planet wouldn't neutralise the levels of poverty, EAL, SEN and every other thing you can think of that makes it harder to get good results. These factors exist in much, much greater number in the City of Manchester than nearly anywhere else in the country. Didsbury and the more upcoming bits of Chorlton isn't nearly enough to make the demographics of the area anything close to Trafford or Stockport.

I'm really glad the Manchester example was raised in this thread though, was going to do it myself til I saw you beat me to it. I'm a school governor in the area, and we were discussing early years funding and provision at some recent training I attended. I, like you, was under the impression that all City of Manchester primary schools provide the 30 hours for children turning 4 that academic year. In fact, this changed a year ago, and the council gave the schools the choice about whether to provide 30, or 15 and use the extra 15 hours funding (the council gives all schools 30 hours worth) elsewhere in the school. Most of them have stuck with the 30 hours. They didn't say which ones hadn't, but I suspect it's the more affluent ones. They mentioned in the training that the reason Manchester does this, and has historically provided more nursery hours than the minimum, is because of the levels of deprivation. Basically the greater that is, the more likely that doing more hours of education earlier will be beneficial. They said the correlation was very clear, however I did not see the research myself although it chimes with what I have always understood. I should add that I won't be availing myself of the full 30 hours for my own child when the time comes, though. And Manchester has more option to do this than many areas because, due to the high levels of deprivation, the funding per child is higher here than nearly anywhere else in the country. Apparently it's only a few areas in London and then Salford that come close, in England and Wales.

but soon who would cover the cost of that? It isn't propaganda.
SAHP is a choice. Whoever makes that choice has to determine whether they can afford it.
I would imagine that govt thinks the additional free childcare hours will be funded by increasing ratios (so no additional staff costs) and by the extra tax coming in from more people working or somesuch.