Why do parents working 16 hours need 30 hours free childcare?

[shaggedthruahedgebackwards]

Even if you have a long commute then I can't see why more than about 20 hours should be necessary?

Surely it would make more sense to fund a smaller number of hours properly instead of promising 30 hours but not funding it properly?

As I recall when mine were pre-school age, we got 15 free hours once they were 3, for which we were very grateful. We needed 3 full days childcare so obviously paid the difference from our income.

I'm all for supporting parents to work but 30 hours seems totally excessive for the majority of parents.

I know there are plenty of parents who do work full time and therefore do next 30+ hours childcare but it seems fair that parents should have to pay a chunk of the childcare themselves and somewhere between 15 and 20 hours free is a pretty generous subsidy surely?

I'd like to clear up one misconception - and I'm very surprised that I need to after the extensive reporting this week:

It is not free!

Nurseries and childminders offering this entitlement are being forced to subsidise it themselves because the funding isn't enough. Many are having to pass on those charges to parents or go out of business.
Brilliant suggestions from the authorities on how we can balance the books include having a bucket in the reception area for donations, taking in ironing for parents and providing take-away food from the kitchens. Yes - really!! No idea what we're supposed to do with the children while we're collecting/ironing/competing with the local Curry House, but there you go.

This may also mean that parents of younger children, who do not qualify, have costs passed on to them in increased fees (we can't penalise funded children), nappies, food and extras.

The Government has been at pains to insist their pilot scheme worked. Well, that would be because it paid a higher rate (Yorks providers refused to pilot it until they did), and allowed top-ups. In fact, the model was so different, it was hardly a pilot at all!
We are NOT allowed to top up - but many providers are quietly doing so because they can't give you your subsidy without it. Many LAs are turning a blind eye to this, recognising that either they do so, or no-one will join the scheme.

https://www.ft.com/content/b625316a-8d8a-11e7-9084-d0c17942ba93

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/aug/27/uk-nurseries-30-hours-free-childcare-parents-providers-think-again

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4804166/amp/Families-hit-extra-childcare-charges.html

We won't qualify for the 30 hours free childcare at 3, just 15.
Mrs Bendy then you are earning £100k plus, I think you will afford it just fine.

In my day we ate lumps of coal and we're grateful.... I like ur humour!

I hadn't realised that Tanith. I assumed it all came out of tax payers pockets. I didn't realise that the nurseries were having to charge the rest of us more to cover the costs of the scheme.

That being so, I'm even less happy about it tbh. It's going to cost us a fortune to cover nursery costs because of where we live, to the point where, if we end up with two kids in nursery at once, as a household we will barely break even on my salary once you offset the costs of nurseries....and now I find out that part of the reason it is going to be so much is because our sky high nursery fees are going to be subsidising free places for two year olds where there is in fact at least one parent at home who could be looking after them for free!

Sorry but to me that doesn't seem fair....

Mrs Bendy - I think it's a little selfish to bemoan the free hours for 2 yr olds. It's not like 50% of all 2 yr olds will be claiming.
Childcare costs are extortionate but if it leaves you with hardly any change from your salary you still will have your partners 5k plus to live on. If you have 2 close in age it can be more cost effective to hire a nanny/au pair.

When did being a mum or dad, stay at home for a couple of years, become so little valued. May be a little 'fairy headed' but surely it would be cheaper to offer parents with children under 5 - a decent tax break that would allow for one to be home? For those who want to go out to work ok, but for those who would rather be home, there should be better options. Also, there should be no penalty for a parent to take a couple of years 'off' for child rearing, when pension age arrives. Again, maybe the London pollution has affected my brain.

Completely agree with you Damarisand! I had to give up my career (took me 3 months to come to the decision) as my job was just too demanding. I couldn't always guarantee I would be out at 5 & flexible hours were rejected for everyone. I would never have seen my kids.
I missed working & my independence (plus tech is moving so fast) so found a part time job & recently started my own business however I couldn't have done this without the support of my husband & family. My wage would barely cover the childcare bill.
There should be more choice/flexibility for all. Those that want to take a break should be able too & those that want to work shouldn't be priced out. Yes I know, dreamland!

'I think the UK system is just needlessly complicated and it would be much simpler to just properly subsidise childcare and have the fees on a sliding scale so everyone pays what they can afford and make sure that all childcare is of decent quality so every child can benefit from it.'

Ah, that's far too socialist for the UK , where people must be punished for not earning a lot, you'd have too many moans of, 'Why should I pay full whack when the cleaner doesn't? It's not fair!'

Getout21 - and I think it's a little rude to call someone you've never met before selfish for not wanting to have to partially pay someone else's nursery costs!!

Whatever....let's agree to disagree on this please. 😉

I did only say little 😉

Eee tenfor... think tha-sen lucky lass.... i would have bin daarn t'pits gettin yer coil!!!

Yes I am older and from Yorkshire so can indeed be a taker of your urine!!
In all seriousness though.
kitkat: My child is ex lac (looked after child) has fasd and gdd plus adhd/asd (although pretty sure that the asd and adhd is linked to the fasd but the paediatrician won't give that diagnosis yet) irrespective of my income he was entitled to childcare of 15 hours due to being classed as disadvantaged (3rd or 4th primary carer before 1 years old and born addicted to drugs and alcohol so this helped with speech and language, socialization etc although i paid for as much child care and the nursery couldn't cope with his "quirks" so he never did 15 hours.
If you look at the poorer income households the children are quite often disadvantaged so it was classed as early education to put them on a more even keel when starting school as are lac, adopted and sgo children as they come from disadvantaged backgrounds and need as much early intervention as possible.
I do feel that 30 hours for nonworking households from age 2 is a little unfair though.
Am I right in thinking that once they start school that are not entitled to it as we receiving 30 hours of education a week anyway.... out of the loop now as my son is at school.

The 15 hours free at 2 years old is shit. My sahm friend who's husband runs his own business self employed gets the 2 year funding yet me and my husband (both full time workers with 3 children) don't. He "earns" £15,400 per year but can maintain a £1400 per month rent plus bills plus child maintenance for his other 4 children.

We pay £1580 per month childcare for our 3 as nursery and wraparound care. We are not entitled to any help due to our mortgage and the fact we are married. He earns £24000 and I earn £20000. Our mortgage alone is £1,200 per month. We are stealing from our savings to pay for childcare - it's so wrong.

I do feel that 30 hours for nonworking households from age 2 is a little unfair though.

This dies not exist.

Sorry, does not dies.

So DNo, because you have an example of one anecdote of people taking advantage, that means the whole set up - a set up which benefits children with additional needs, children who start life with great financial disadvantage and those who have started life in the care system - this is all just rubbish?

Aah thank you hazy as I said out of the loop and going on what I had read or misread here. The free childcare I get now is school.... although the amount of subsidies we make for our school it's not free but that's another thread

Tanith Are the pilot rates not being paid countrywide then? (I live in the pilot area and got the 30 hours for my son last year.) That is bad!

According to our nursery owner (she and I are pretty friendly and I was on the parents committee - plus I'm a mathematician and have checked her sums!) she was better off with the 30 hour rate for 30 hours than she was with the 15 hour rate plus her usual charge for the other 15.

Tanith raises some very valid points. In addition to these, I wonder where a lot of these 3-year-olds will actually go? There must be lots of nurseries who don't have the physical space to accommodate children for any additional hours. This will have a knock-on effect for everybody in the system.

Mrs Bendy I don't have children and so I suppose I am contributing to your childcare costs, and those of all others taking up funded hours, through taxation. I don't resent this, partly because the 16 years I worked in education showed me the very great disadvantage suffered by children who start school inadequately prepared.

The vast majority of children who attain poorly when starting school, will continue to underachieve relative to their peers throughout their education. Moreover, there is a wider impact on all children in reception classes where the primaries are also trying to potty-train and teach basic social and communication skills to some pupils. Pre-school can help with these issues, and uptake of free pre-school education is higher amongst these hard-to-reach families when the provision is universal and widely used.

Given that we live in a society where we all share the costs (financial and otherwise) of education, childcare, sickness, protection from extreme poverty etc etc, I think the pertinent question is whether or not this is a worthwhile common endeavour. I believe it is, although it seems apparent that the scheme is being attempted on the cheap and administered badly, which will inevitably increase cost and limit impact.

@BooksandsunandGandT - I do agree helping reduce the attainment gap between lower income families and higher income ones is a noble aim. I do also think though that the way they are seeking to do it here is ineffective and unfair. If I'm already supplementing the early years provision for lower income/no income families through my income tax, then why am I having to supplement it further by a supplement charged by the non-state nursery I'm going to be sending my child to?

Ps @Getout21 in answer to an earlier question of yours, the free 15 hours provision for two year olds is not just for families earning less than £16k per year, it's also available to recipients of Income Support and JSA, so some people getting it are earning nothing at all and are at home available to look after their own kids during the time they will be sending them off to their "free" nursery hours. In response to another point you raised, namely that it's selfish of me to "begrudge" 2 year olds their free early years provision because "it's not like 50% of all 2 year olds will be claiming", you're right, 50% won't be, but 40% will be apparently - www.gov.uk/government/news/number-of-2-year-olds-eligible-for-free-childcare-to-double - and that's still quite a lot for the rest of us to be supplementing through our own nursery fees, don't you think?!

Back to @booksandsunandgant 's point - Does the fact I am having a child myself mean that I have a greater financial obligation towards picking up the shortfall to provide nursery care for an inadequate parent who can't/won't even potty train their child by the time their child starts school at 4, just so my child's reception class teacher will have more time to teach my kid and won't be distracted by having to deal with said potty training. Is this really a thing?! I had no idea. All kids in my reception class at school knew how to use a toilet. I'm appalled, truly. Why are these people even bothering to have kids if they are going to do such a half arsed job of it.....and if they are that wholly inadequate, is 15 hours a week of free nursery care really the solution, or do they need to be set on parenting courses instead? Or should the kids just be taken into care and placed with someone who will actually make a bit of effort for them?! Same for basic communication skills, unless your child has autism or similar, which is a different story entirely, then I don't really see how it's possible for a child to be non-verbal and have no basic communication skills by school age, unless there has been serious parental neglect. A child with no early years provision who has been raised by a stay at home parent would still have basic communication skills. Taking a kid out of a home that bad (no basic communication skills and no potty training by 4 years old) for 15 hours a week isn't going to fix things when they are still at home with said rubbish parents for the remaining 153 hours per week. Either get the kid out of that home completely or get the parents some serious help so they can parent properly.

I started reading the following report last night, which has reinforced my concerns somewhat. See particularly page 28 which reinforces my concerns that making the parents who are ineligible to benefit under the scheme supplement the costs of providing g it for those who are eligible is going to make the costs sky rocket for us, and also pages 30 - 31 which cite previous research studies which show that the "small average beneficial impact to educational attainment [resulting from the UK's free entitlement to pre-school] at age 5 (though somewhat larger for disadvantaged children). Yet this had weakened by age 7 and had disappeared completely by age 11."

iea.org.uk/we-content/uploads/2017/02/Getting-the-State-out-of-preschool-childcare.pdf

Wow 40% of 2 year olds are in homes earning 16000 or less? I had no Idea. The family average for 2 kids is trotted out as being much higher than that.

I think by the time it's topped by tax credits etc it can be a lot more though.

My husband was made redundant so for a few months we were entitled to fsm and the 2 year old grant. I wasn't planning on sending 2 year old and was actively involved in playgroup, outside a lot etc. Our preschool owner said there was absolutely no reason/benefit to sending our child early unless I particularly wanted to. I still didn't use the full 15 hours at 3. I'm amazed how quickly the culture is changing (have relatives who think starting school at 4 is inconceivable!)

I was under the impression there was only really benefit pre 3 if the home life was difficult (through Ill health or poor parenting or all the struggles that can come with low income or any number of reasons.)

To the parents who have children with SEN.

Do you think your kids attending nursery improved their social and language skills ? In my experience, it didn't do anything for DS (maybe in later years but not at the time). It was like DS had to be taught to communicate/speak/socialise, he wasn't able to learn from his environment at the time.

Rufus27- I did say other reasons like SEN and illness, I take2 year old funding and was in the pilot to do so. All the children I have had have either had a SEN or a developmental delay themselves or had parents with their own health issues and have been placed through HV, Children centre or social services. To see these children blossom and to support their parents is the most rewarding part of the job.
I don't think the take up is as high as it could be as unfortunately a lot of parents don't want charity or think their child is going to be labelled.

"Why is she going to nursery on your days off?" Why shouldn't she???? It's pre-school, luckily a class within the school that she will be attending and it prepares them well for school life. Plus my DS LOVED nursery.
This really says it all. For years we've been told that those working only 16h as a family did so just because they couldn't afford childcare otherwise. Then that went up to 24h whilst single mums still claiming that due to childcare costs, they were not better off working more than 16 hours.

And of course, you had all the judgmental mums saying that they had a right not to put their kids into childcare because it was so much better for the children to be at home with mum, even going to the extreme of such statements as 'why have kids if you're going to have other raising them'.

Then comes the 30 hours free, and nursery is the best place for the kids and of course they should go even when mum isn't working!

The hypocrisy of people is staggering!