To be delighted with thirty free hours child care!!!

[Lookingforabetteryear]

I have a three year old , I'm a single mum and work full time . On average I pay £700 pm for nursery fees . From sept I'll be paying £285!!! Bloody wonderful move in childcare policy. Am I missing something with this ?! Seems too good to be true.

[Lookingforabetteryear]

How unfair . I hunted around for term time nurseries ( I only looked at private nurseries , I don't know what council ones are ?!) and they had schemes that you'd have to pay for 1 day a week during school holidays rather than the whole week. I drive a little out of area for this specific nursery but worth it for the savings

[JunefromAccounts]

Watch this video (only 3 mins long) which explains the difficulties, childcare providers are facing
Champagne nurseries - lemonade funding

[NatureIsAWhore]

Benefit claimer?? What's wrong with that? I think she's paid enough tax in her working years to not feel guilty about acceptng this free offer don't you think?

[Lookingforabetteryear]

Thank you naturels. Ironically I would have been better off on benefits for past 2.5 years but I chose to return to my profession as i am only wage earner and was looking long term at pension/ earning potential. That aside , people who do claim benefits do so for many reasons. There is no right or wrong way

[NatureIsAWhore]

why do you have to send her to nursery lesley if you're a sahm?

[msgrinch]

I know 2 child minders and one nursery manager and all are deciding to close and change career now. It's not worth it for them anymore, the "free" hours are at a cost to the provider. Awful.

[TooStressyForMyOwnGood]

Nature, obviously I can't speak for Lesley but lots of SAHP's send their children to childcare, especially the shortish sessions at preschool, in preparation for school.

[TooStressyForMyOwnGood]

Grammar fail, sorry. SAHPs

[NapQueen]

I'm a SAHM & don't qualify for the free childcare so our daughter is going to have to go to a private nursery which will cost us £6000 a year

Forgive me, but if you are a SAHM you do not require childcare. Why should you get it for free? Unless there are extenuating circumstances you omitted in your post.

Neither do you have to send her to a private nursery at a cost to you of £6k. You could choose to do so. If you have the funds. Which you appear to. Rendering your point moot.

[msgrinch]

If you are a SAHM and want nursery as well you should pay for it yourself. Maybe one session a fortnight should be covered a month or so before school but other than that the funding should help people go back to work.

[TooStressyForMyOwnGood]

It is a massive jump for a child to go straight to school with no nursery / preschool in this day and age. Preschool funding provision used to be there for the benefit of he child to help them get used to a childcare setting before school. Can't see why SAHPs shouldn't use this. I am not a SAHP by the way.

[Jakeyboy1]

I am v excited by it too! It horrifies me when I think to the thousands of £££s I have spent over the last 4 years between two DDs at nursery, when they were both there it was awful!

Yes still slightly dubious if it will happen.

However having had conversations with my nursery before re why some do and don't offer the current 15 hours they explained they just average the difference needed to make up the cost across all the rooms i.e. So you are paying slightly more in baby room than you should. The manager was quite perplexed as to why other nurseries found it so hard to do. My nursery is not top rate for my area but pretty high.

Re tax free childcare my understanding is if you come out of the voucher scheme you cannot go back in so even though I would be slightly bette off under tax free for now have decided to stay in vouchers as may be worth more longer term.

Why they make it so complicated is beyond me.

[Cupcake1315]

I was happy when I saw that my children's nursery was doing this, as I was going to go to uni on a bursary scheme for 1 year where I'd be given around £1200 monthly which would just make ends meet by paying the rent, bills, food etc, but wouldn't be enough for nursery. However being a student means you can't claim, or do I've been told even though 60% of my time will not never I need university but on my placement working from 9-5pm. I find it really unfair. I have to now decide if I do the course or not. As I was planning to do it the following year when my daughter was in school but with all the cuts being made, they can't guaranteed the scheme will be going the following year. So it's good for some ppl but there will be losers along the way. I'm happy it works in your favour 😊

[maddening]

They should just call it a pro-rata subsidy payment straight to childcare provider - so both parents working 30 hours you get full subsidy, the up to you to top it up. Enables the choice for the parents. Down side might be child care providers may bump up prices because they can?

[Jakeyboy1]

On the other matter if you're a SAHM you still get the universal 15 hours right?

[NapQueen]

Jakey SAHPs can still place their dc in a nursery if there is a place for the 15 hours free yes. Usually a preschool attached to a school only offers similar to school hours with no option to top up but this is likely changing with the 30hr rule.

[ThanksMsMay]

Brilliant op
So glad you are raking it in
You are now a benefit claimer



Can you "rake in" free child care?

[gillybeanz]

Why do you think it will be less money for staff, they'll just have fewer staff you can't pay less than the min wage, which is rising, (albeit slowly) They'll up the ratio a bit and have other cut backs like schools have done.
Cheaper childcare means less money for nurseries and the children why is this a good thing to be celebrated?

[Ceefax101]

I think it's wonderful that parents can get this and save money. But as a childminder I can't afford to offer this. Our local rate is £2.20 an hour less then I charge. Payment is termly so instead of a regular monthly payment from parents there's now a vast amount of paperwork to complete to get paid in a few months time.

We have been told we can charge for extras if we want to top it up - i.e charge for food, but we have to make it clear that this is optional to the parent and they can bring their own to keep the 30 hours free

We pay a lot of money out for insurance, training course fees, registration fees, resources etc. I've decided not to offer the 30 hours as I just can't see how I can work these hours for any less then i earn now. I'm going to give it another year then maybe look for something else if I can't fill my spaces.

[Summerisdone]

On paper the free hours are a fantastic idea, however in reality they aren't great for the nurseries. As I'm a single parent on minimum wage I'm able to claim for the 15 hours free from age 2, When I looked into it I found I would be no better off because I get tax credits to help cover a lot of my childcare (which would obviously reduce in accordance to how much the nursery fees reduced with the free hours), however the nursery would be much worse off as they don't get paid the same hourly rate from the government as they charge to me.
I decided in the end not to bother claiming for the free hours as I didn't see the point if I'm still in the same position financially either way but the nursery isn't.

If I didn't qualify for tax credits however, then I most certainly would have claimed for the free hours because childcare costs can be financially crippling even with tax credits to help towards them.

[Lookingforabetteryear]

I don't celebrate less money for childcare and childcare but I do
Celebrate having money to have a better standard of living for my child . Meaning more days out / books / toys etc to engage them and a less stressy parent who isn't always stressed about money. It's not ok that nurseries loose out but in the current system it's also not ok that parents pay so much. We only need to look across to other European countries to see that childcare is ridiculously expensive in the uk

[gillybeanz]

msgrinch

So a child of a sahp shouldn't be entitled to free preschool education because both their parents don't work.
Blimey attitude.
Pre school education and nursery are completely different.
One minds children in loco parentis whilst the other prepares children for school through education and play

[NeverTwerkNaked]

@lesley you don't have to send her though, you just choose to.

As a single mum I have no choice but to work, the 30 free hours is going to be a big relief. However I am worried where the money is coming from. I don't want it to come at the expense of quality of care.
And also - I have a school age child and his school is facing massive cuts. So it seems hard to feel celebratory.

[NeverTwerkNaked]

Well nurseries do both actually gilly (or at least, the decent ones do!)

[NapQueen]

gilly all children can have the 15 hours free preschool offering. Irrespective of sahp or wohp.