Obviously it is a great idea for Working Parents but

[Iliveinalighthousewiththeghost]

Am I being unreasonable to wonder how the government are going to subsidise this.

More affordable childcare is not possible unless supply, of both facilities and people to work in it, increases. Competition basically. Since most nurseries and CM's are on such tight margins even taking into account the supposedly high fees, how is that going to happen? It's not a very attractive proposition at all for anyone starting up. Unfortunately some think that CM's ( since they are home anyway), should joyfully offer to provide care for peanuts because they love kids right? It doesn't work like that. Noone wants to take care of other people's kids without being adequately compensated - that goes all the way from nursery owners down to the staff. When there were more people with less options, it worked. Now there are not.

I think for many countryandchickens the problem is in the implementation. In many places there's little availability in the childcare system as it is so whilst it may reduce costs for those parents who are able to get a childcare place it could just make it harder to get a space for everyone else. Could with the income support changes above....

Kirby have they specified that this only applies to private nurseries? That's not the situation currently and it seems unlikely that the private nurseries would be able to provide the number of spaces required. Around here if you want a place at many of the private nurseries you pretty much need to get your name down before the pee has dried on the pregnancy test

When it comes to providing the current hours that does include childminders and pre-schools.

You must be in a very expensive area buttonmoon. When I had 2 in nursery 50 hours a week it was only a couple of 100 more a month than you charge for 1 for 40 hours.

I think they do have a motive, but I don't think it's ulterior.

I can see objectively that the number of lone parents has gone up significantly in recent years (that is an observation, not a criticism) and that the benefits have come down accordingly - from not having to seek work until your youngest is 12, to 7, to 5 and now to 3. I think?

I think the problem with a parent not having to seek work until the youngest was 12 is that it effectively out a lot of lone parents (women, mostly) out of the job and skills market for so long that finding work that was relatively well paid afterwards would have been difficult/impossible. Care work was one avenue - and that's always been paid badly when you consider the work carers actually do.

I would envision more nurseries and preschools will open - it's supply and demand after all.

I do know that Scandinavia is much hailed on here as a nation that gets things right and they offer free childcare (I think.)

I would like to see them keep the age of the youngest at 5yo, unless you were in training/higher education to improve your job prospects, then at 8yo (which would allow someone to go through a University course full time) as that would encourage some to retrain (or train initially if they haven't had that opportunity yet) and give them the prospect of a better job that could support them.

Yes, it would cost more money initially, but I would think it was a good investment as the parent then has the opportunity of a better job to get off benefits entirely.

That assumes everybody has the academic ability to go to university though Alice which isn't true.

I am all for people improving their job prospects but realistically some people can't.

I completely understand that country, but I was simply offering it up as an idea. What about other courses that people can take such as the NVQ levels in various things... no reason why those things couldn't count as well. It doesn't necessarily have to be Uni. I mentioned Uni as generally it's 3 years, so delaying from age 5 to age 8 seemed reasonable. But that would also allow people to get through NVQ courses as well, greatly increasing their chances of getting a good job.

I'm in central London kirby- when did you use childcare and where were you? Childcare is a mega expense, I'm confident the service I provide is worth the cost. I make a stable income but after tax and overheads I'm not earning a great deal. I agree with the PP because we work from home we must be rolling in it especially as all we do is play all day! (Takes several deep breaths) anyway I digress...

The govt are full of rich idiots that have no clue that's my insightful thought of the day

I agree but sometimes relevant experience is what counts, not qualifications :)

country I get that, but you have to start somewhere. And I feel it's better to encourage people to get qualifications if they can, rather than push people into taking whatever work is available with no regard for the possibility of improvement in their prospects. It's better than nothing IMO.

I haven't RTFT but in my experience the pittance they're going to be paying child care providers per hour for offering the service is how they'll manage it. My wonderful gold dust child minder will have to stop taking 3 year olds from September for the first time in 20 years. This is because the government will only pay her £1 less per hour than she needs to charge. It angers me that working parents are being lulled into a false sense of security when the reality is that childcare for 3 year olds plus will probably rare as hen's teeth by the time the funding kicks in.

I don't think many more will open unless the amount the government is prepared to pay for it goes up or unless more state facilities are created. Childcare is not a particularly cheap business to be in, venues are hard to find, staffing costs will also be higher come April as many nursery staff are roughly minimum wage...

Again talking Scotland- Edinburgh council (different system but for comparison) is £1550 for 600 hours - so £2.58 per hour. I know how much it costs to set up and run a good childcare setting, and they're not going to spring up it that's anything close to the fees in England. Childminders here can't provide the free hours anyway, but £5 per hour is a normal fee around here. FT nursery fees are around £50 per day.

I agree statisticallychallenged- something has to give, either the govt will have to put more money in elsewhere or standards drop and businesses close

Won't it just fuel the issue of childcare being so expensive? Surely private funded hours prices will increase to cover some of the cost?

I think in England the private providers aren't allowed to charge top up fees on the free hours. 15 hours isn't that much so they probably get around it by the rest of their fees being higher to absorb it (as a lot of people will use more than the 15 hours if they're using a private nursery rather than preschool as it's more likely to be used for "childcare" than just "pre-school education"), but proportionally fewer will need to top up their hours from 30 so that balance will be harder to achieve.

Totally agree ButtonMoon88. Childcare as a parent feels very expensive - but as a provider it is not cheap to do, and certainly not cheap to do well.

Childcare is only half the issue for working parents. Flexible/part-time working and understanding employers are the other half.

This initiative assumes there are lots of part-time jobs out there with employers happy to permit unplanned leave for sick children etc.

Also what happens once children reach school age? Is the assumption that everyone has the option to work 5 hours a day with 12 weeks holiday a year? Or that wrap around care is readily available for all (and will that also be funded)?

This initiative alone will not facilitate parents who currently want to work but can't afford to.

Maybe they're all meant to go and set up new nurseries looking after each other's children Million

Wrap around care is tricky for a lot of parents.

Statsically Are you sure your figures for Edinburgh are right? Different council in Scotland we were being paid £1550 for the 475 hours (so £3.26 per hour) but now we get £2460 per FT child per year for 600hrs (£4.10 per hr)
The hourly increase greatly helped us (about time too it hadn't been increased for 5+yrs - and NMW had and the need for SVQ level qualified workers etc...in fact all our overheads) and the extended hours caused us a major headache.
BUT we now have a contract for the next 3yrs - doesn't look like the rate will increase in that time - NMW will and also autoenrolment for pensions will come in and by the time that contract runs out 8% of some staff members wages will go into a pension and 3% that will come from the employer contribution...(although the increase in personal allowance (I think is fantastic) has meant that a lot of them have come out of the income tax bracket/pay significantly less income tax).
On the other hand no point worrying about that - cos soon we will need a degree qualified manager (and a very specific degree -a primary teacher wouldn't be qualified) and the money just isn't there to pay them and it is only part time anyway...
Most of the current managers of preschool and playgroups don't want to do the degree (fair enough -it isn't worth their while, they will never earn enough to warrant the cost). So it will be a drop in position or change of direction or in all the cases I've heard of early retirement.

Which is what our fantastic manager with rafts of experience but who hasn't got the 'right' degree - plans to do - early retirement. Someone who is more than capable of doing their job seeing as we consistently get excellent and very good gradings...
There is a suggestion that 3 groups could share a manager ...so we pay someone (most likely straight out of uni) a huge hourly rate to come in for a day or so a week to 'oversee'...they can't possible do as good a job as someone who is there all the time and makes a mockery of 'child led learning' -they will never see some of the children! (why our manager plans to retire not drop position ...would you take a drop in salary to be overseen by someone with zero experience?)
I foresee the death of playgroups and preschools

Stat: And if it reduced the number of people claiming benefits/tax credits and increased the numbers paying income tax, that would probably be a neat solution (from this governments perspective...).

Wrap around care is even trickier for lone parents on a low income. The need for childcare doesn't stop at age 5.

To someone charging £7 an hour, £4.10 is hardly going to look attractive is it? I can't see how this can be achieved without forcing providers to take it on. The only people it would appeal to are those in far-flung areas who can't command a higher rate than the subsidised one. Yet there is less demand there so it really isn't going to cost the taxpayer as much as it sounds as they are probably counting on providers in areas where the demand is much higher not to actually take these 'free hours' children on as it would mean a significant reduction in income..

We don't have any council-funded nurseries round here - yes, we have private nurseries and charity-run playgroups, but no council-funded nurseries. Surely providers will just up their hourly rates? I don't understant the "sky is falling" mentality.

Our private day nursery basically has two fee bands for the over threes - a rate if you are using your free entitlement, and a rate if you aren't. I don't understand why the Govt. just doesn't bung you a cash sum per child though - less admin, more parental choice and nurseries can't just bung their prices up to the current subsidy level.

unlucky I could be wrong, it was a fairly quick look so it may have increased. Although given how skint Edinburgh council are it's probably been spent on a tram instead

Will PM you if you don't mind as I so feel your pain re the manager!

It won't be for pre schools or childminders though

Why won't preschools be affected?

I don't think they're technically allowed to have to two price bands verypunny - going on what I've read but it does seem lots do ask for top ups etc which they shouldn't do.

Up here, or certainly until last year when DD moved to pre school, we weren't allowed to combine sessions and in the private nurseries the sessions are much longer than the funded sessions - think morning was 7-1 at ours, where as then the preschool sessions were 2.5 hours. So even though DD used 2 mornings ( about 11 hours) we were only able to claim the cost of 2*2.5 hour sessions. We then got billed for the other 3.5 hours - but the nursery didn't do the short sessions...seems to be pretty common but combined with it being term time only it made it a bit useless for parents and kind of pissing in the wind cost wise. I think it's more flexible elsewhere!

We aren't allowed to make up the subsidised fee, and we are threatened with auditing to check this. It's not to say some people don't, and pass off the extra charge as something else, a meal charge for example, but this shouldn't happen, and it will be much more difficult to try and make up 30+ free hours especially if you have several 3yr olds.

It's a flawed scheme, concocted by those who it won't affect.