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!!!!

OP - I'm no expert but if you are on maternity leave then you are technically still employed and therefore I see no reason why you wouldn't benefit from the 30 hrs per week unless there is a distinct carve out if you are receiving MA/SSP at the same time. Flipping headache to manage though

If you take a career break / resign to take a year off with a vague intent to return to work then you are presumably no longer on HMRC records as a taxpayer and your employer is no making NI contributions on your behalf, then you will get the standard 15 hours.

I don't see anything unfair in that.

I believe there will be a cut off
There is, sort of - a joint income of £300,000 or a single parent income of £150k is what has been proposed for the new Tax free Childcare benefit of £2000k a year which is a small drop in the ocean of £40k pa. No idea if that initiative is now going ahead or will be replaced by the 30 hrs one.

Tanith we were discussing whether this will happen at the school governor training I mention in my last post. The council said they didn't know yet how it was going to shake down, but the 30 hours are a manifesto commitment and they expected it to be kept. This was a few days after the election. There isn't actually capacity for every 3 year old to attend a school nursery in our area, but the council historically take nursery education very seriously and have done since the 70s. So I expect they will aim to provide. Interesting times...

Tarka had the key point for me I think. If this is childcare, then all their spin about the 15 hours being education and best for the child was crap. But extending it to 30 hours for working parents for the sake of the parents and GDP makes sense under that circumstance.

But if it is genuinely education Then it should be available to all.

That said, I don't believe it wouLd be in the interest of all children and certainly wouldn't use it. We didn't use the 15 hrs for the eldest as she hated being away from home, and are undecided as yet for the youngest, he will be eligible in Sept.

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

Well, I'll be straightforwardly political here and say I don't think the relegation of mothers to SAHPs is healthy for the mother, the child, or our society.

And like others, I'm hardly a Tory! I just believe that parenting needs to be shared, and that the inequality all women still experience is in large part because of the assumption that our maternal role is more important than other things we do.

And if you want to know about discrimination ? I've been a lone parent since my DS was 3. 20 years & counting ... Try that for discrimination. Thank the goddess I never gave up my job.

And on the subject of ML- certainly at the moment, when on ML you are considered to be employed. This would mean your child would get the 30 hours. This is why people on ML can eg keep getting tax credits for childcare even while they're still at home. Obviously it's possible this could change, but since the whole aim seems to be to get more mothers working, it would be a surprise if they excluded mums on ML since that would be entirely counter-productive. And potentially also function as a barrier back to work eg if you'd had to give up your older DC/s place/s while you were on ML due to lack of tax credits to pay for it, then couldn't get childcare once ML ended and you wanted to go back to work.

Fiveacres single parents eligible for full childcare working tax credits receive more money for childcare than they would in income support. If they are basic rate tax payers in it hardly cost effective for the economy. Single mothers could receive the equivalent childcare money and choose whether to work and spend it on childcare or as a top up for IS and stay at home.

Not all single parents are in receipt of those benefits Soon.

Yes I know that , it was one option to help single mothers with the lowest incomes.

It's clear from this thread that the extra hours would be very welcome to many people. Where is the op?

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 proposal was to increase the number of children per carer. This would have brought us into line with France, Sweden and many other European countries. It was opposed on the grounds that it would undermine the quality of childcare. A side effect of the proposal being dropped is that childcare costs remain high in the UK.

Soon - when childcare costs are subtracted it is often those working with the lowest incomes.

I would have less than a single parent with two children claiming IS, CTC and HB as a full time teacher with two in full time childcare.

Doesn't that surely indicate people need help with this?

Not read full thread but

During your 9 months of mat leave you'll still be classed as working so will be entitled to the 'free' childcare then.

So it's only 3 months you won't.

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

It is not the job of government to fund all possible lifestyle choices. If the government does something to help SAHPs there will be people complaining that the proposal discriminates against working parents. If the government does something to help married couples there will be people complaining that the proposal discriminates against single parents. If the government does something to help single parents there will be people complaining that the proposal discriminates against married couples.

The government does not have unlimited money. Governing therefore involves making choices as to how best to target that money. Given there have long been complaints from various groups that the cost of childcare is preventing mothers returning to work when they want to and is a source of gender inequality in the workplace I am not surprised the government is proposing to help those parents who want to work. Both Labour and the LibDems also want to extend childcare provision for working parents, although the details of their proposals differ from the government's.

You hear single people complaining that their tax benefits families. This thread has made me right wing at least on taxation. Most odd. Never thought I'd say it, but really low taxation seems the way to go. People keep as much as possible of what they earn and spend it how they please. This moaning about how others have access to some benefit or tax break that one is denied is so undignified.

PrH47bridge- agree.

Whenever these discussions come up, the concept of the 'mother staying at home to raise her child' isn't helpful. We are living in an era (thank god!) where girls and boys are raised to have equality of opportunity, and most of us recognise that men and women are equally capable In the workplace and at home. Also, 'raising a child' embraces SO much more than whether a mother works or not, and it can be done in a million different ways... It is about the values a child is brought up with, the influences from wider society- it's not simply a matter of who wipes their bum 'raising them'!

I also think that there can be very good, personally productive reasons why an adult might choose to have some time out of paid employment, provided they have the financial means to do so. Why should the govt fund a parent to stay at home over and above other people who might choose to stay at home to eg: write a book, do voluntary work Etc etc?

"The proposal was to increase the number of children per carer. This would have brought us into line with France, Sweden and many other European countries. It was opposed on the grounds that it would undermine the quality of childcare. A side effect of the proposal being dropped is that childcare costs remain high in the UK."

It is hard to be in line because there are so many differences, the pre-school type of provision in (say) Sweeden goes up to the age of 6 - ratios in that age range are bound to be different.

Also looking at statistics from 2013 in Sweeden degree qualified teachers earn about 8% less than than primary age teachers and upper secondary school level qualified (roughly NVQ3) assistants earning about 23% less than than primary age teachers. The pay gap between primary school teachers and NVQ qualified early years practitioners is significantly more than 23% here.

I'm not using this to make recommendations, just to highlight that it is very hard to compare the systems and to know if there would be any savings in making changes of this kind. German early years workers have recently been (and may still be, I haven't checked) on strike because of changes to their system without what they feel is fair pay increases - it is complicated.

Why on earth would we want to encourage even more mothers not to work by paying them to raise their own child. The state doesn't force anybody to have a child, it's down to the choice of the adult. Therefore only the parents should fund not working if that's what they choose to do. Some take years and years out of the workplace to have numerous children, their choice but then they should fund it.

We need working mothers, both for the economy and society. Doctors, nurses, social workers etc. Women hold many important jobs.

Paying people to parent would be bad for society, they should do it as its a responsibility they have chosen not because it makes money. Why do you think the benefit system has seen such reform?

I had 3 under 5 in full time childcare (nursery) at one point. It cost less than my salary but it was really hard - this was before any help at all to pay for nursery fees, no vouchers, no salary sacrifice, no free hours (we just missed out on that). I think that anything that helps working parents is a Good Thing so long as it is not at the expense of other vulnerable groups. If it is funded by taking free provision away from the wealthy that's fine by me. If it's funded by removing free provision from the less well off then that's not good. Linking free provision to household income or benefits seems eminently sensible so long as the threshold isn't set too low. One would hope that the government will learn from the mess they made of the withdrawal of child benefit (where some single (high) earner households found themselves without it while some dual earner households with a higher total income but lower individual incomes still retained it).

I think the 15 free hours is plenty if you're not working and plenty of socialising and nursery time for under school age children.

My youngest is going to school in Sept and this is what all my three have had and it's been great as I couldn't have afforded to pay for 15hours.

I do work so I guess would have been entitled to 30 but as my shifts are mostly out of school hours I don't think I would have used more than 15 as I quite like spending time with my pre-schoolers!

The state doesn't force anybody to have a child, it's down to the choice of the adult.

You are spot on with that that. The state doesn't force anybody to have a child so why should it pay for services which help any patents whether they work or not?
We don't have 100% employment so we don't need everybody working and don't need to pay to make going to work easier for anyone.
Perhaps we should just fund childcare for those that work in essential services as we need those employees in the workforce. Or perhaps we should calculate whether it will cost the public purse less money to keep somebody at home than it would be to keep them in the workplace and then provide the cheaper of the two.

Super excited- I think you're kind of confirming the point that the govt does act in the economics interests of the country. Why do you think key workers have access to subsidised housing in some areas? Because we need people doing those jobs. Subsidised childcare is about enabling wider access. And yes, maybe in the short term it may cost less to keep a parent at home, but all the evidence shows that in the long term, it's advantageous economically to stay in work.
No personal axe to grind here, because my children are grown up and anyway we paid for all our childcare ourselves (before the days of any subsidies!) But I can totally see why the govt want to support working families.

I can totally see why they want to support working families too but I still think it is daft to pay £2000 in subsidies for a minimum wage worker who has no prospects of ever getting a promotion to go to work when we could keep them at home for half that amount of money.

We do need key workers and it is important that we support them to stay in the workplace but I don't think we have such a great need for somebody who stacks shelves.
Not all key workers need help either or will be able to qualify for key worker housing schemes.
I have no axe to grind. I worked full time when my first child was born and paid all the childcare costs myself. When my second child was born I had to give up work due to one of the children having a complex and severe disability and nurseries not being able to meet his needs. At that time I paid for the able bodied child to attend a pre school 4 mornings a week so that he could socialise with typical children. I don't begrudge having spent that money, but I do think that I didn't have much choice in the matter if I wanted a decent outcome for my child and for him to be around typical children.
I don't think SAHPs need free early years education or free childcare. The Manchester example (which I mentioned earlier) shows that it doesn't improve educational outcomes for the child. Parental attitude and input has the biggest effect on children's outcomes and 15 hours free childcare (or even 30 in the case of Manchester) doesn't outweigh the parent effect.
I just think that free childcare should not be universal (there should be some help, but not universal help). Parents should plan their finances before having children. I can think of much better things this country could spend that money on than providing universal free childcare for people whether employed or not.

Yes- I agree that the childcare subsidies don't need to be universal, and I would have no problem with them being means tested BUT I think it's vital not to set the threshold too low. Whenever I read these threads it makes me realise how some people have just no clue how much childcare costs, and how, when you factor in the added work expenses like commuting, the financial costs of working can be really prohibitive.

I do find these threads tend to go the same way though... OP starts a thread being very indignant about not being entitled to some perceived 'benefit', and then when you dig a little deeper, it's apparent they don't even want or need that benefit!!

Where is the OP btw?!

By 'set the threshold too low' I do of course mean the threshold beyond which you won't receive help

I think it's quite fair. Why do SAHP's need childcare when the whole point of being a SAHP is to take care of your children. Working parents are contributing to the economy SAHP's are not.