To not understand why Rishi Sunak shelving the 'childcare reform plans' as a bad thing

[Mummyof287]

Firstly because increasing the ratios would be unsafe and unkind for children, and and unfair for childcare practitioners.
(I used to be one)

Secondly because '20 more hours free childcare' would basically be the government pushing/encouraging parents to prioritise working before their children, and to be more likely to send them to daycare for longer than is emotionally healthy to be apart from their families at such a young age.

So why is it being seen as a bad move? Or is that just the media's viewpoint 🤨

Worth noting that the increase in hours in Scotland led to council nurseries doing mass recruitment, which in turn led to so many experienced childcare staff moving out of private sector for the better holidays and hours etc.

Result has been private nurseries closing due to lack of staff, or those that have survived are doing so by relying on trainees/junior staff.

I was relieved when my kids went to school, as they difference one their nursery in the couple of years since the increase was really concerning. They even changed the opening hours which scuppered a lot of working parents as the early opening was scrapped.

Yes I have, I presume you haven’t?
nmw post tax and NI is £9 per hour (40 hour week) or £9.15 per hour (37.5 hour week). £6.50 is 80% of £8.13.
so maybe explain how it’s more than 80%?

at that income level you’d be getting 80% of childcare through UC. If you have a high earning partner no you wouldn’t but limits aren’t that low.

£6.50 per hour really isn’t expensive for the service provided.

Because you don't pay for 37.5 hour a week of nursery you pay for 50 at full time.

And no, you wouldn't. Two adults on min wage with a childcare bill of £65 a day full time job get just over £100 a month. I did the calculator.

Check again.

You can do the calculator yourself if you like. Maybe read up on universal credit whilst you're there.

It baffles me how someone can be so utterly confident of something they clearly do not understand. Yes, per hour it's not 80%, but you don't pay per hour. And you definitely don't get 85% of it paid.

If someone like you can't wrap their head around it it's no wonder rishi doesn't have a fucking clue. Blinded by privilege.

£190 a week on those incomes with 2 children on £6.50 an hour child care.

increasing ratios to reduce cost of care would of course also benefit high earners. I’m not sure there’s any evidence it would significantly reduce costs to the end user though. Especially due to likely staffing issues with asking those on poor pay to look after more children for the same amount of money

@BungleandGeorge We aren't arguing about the ratios though. We're telling you how ridiculous you are in saying that £6.50 per hour (when in reality its £65 per day as you have to cover 8 hours of work plus 2 hours commute) is in practice incredibly expensive and unaffordable for even higher earners.

You've clearly not experienced it, so have no knowledge of the realities of putting children into childcare.

Sorry, that should day "were telling you how ridiculous you are when you're saying £6.50 per hour ISNT expensive, when in fact its utterly unaffordable for most when taking into account the rest of the expenditure you have to just cover basic necessities

Secondly because '20 more hours free childcare' would basically be the government pushing/encouraging parents to prioritise working before their children, and to be more likely to send them to daycare for longer than is emotionally healthy to be apart from their families at such a young age.

It would be great if mums who work full time were entitled to 20 funded hours of childcare a week! This means that women wouldn’t have to stay home and sacrifice their career whilst their male colleagues continue to progress (also struggle financially from not working). The alternative is working full time, but struggling financially to pay for expensive childcare on top of increasing bills.

Also it’s completely irrelevant. Professional charge out rates bear little relationship to hourly rates of pay. I doubt daisymade is being paid 10% of her charge out rate. Yet her salary is the money is the thing that will need to pay the childcare fees

You didn’t mention you had a partner earning money and contributing. You spoke about one wage.
there are multiple options to reduce childcare costs, especially if there are 2 parents. i don’t think reducing safety for children should be an option

Do you want to show us those results? Because that's not what I got. It's wildly different.

Nobody is arguing you about the ratios, just the affordability which you cannot seem to accept you have got wrong.

I quite clearly said two full time on minimum wage. Your results are based on one person?

Ah. Yes, as I said. Not a fucking clue.

What are those options for reducing childcare costs? I'm sure most of Mumsnet would like to know.

What a joke.

@BungleandGeorge do you pay for childcare at present? If yes, how much for how many hours?

I agree! It’s still an unhelpful comparison though!

No it was based on 2 people. Your original message mentioned one person which I replied to and then you gave an example of 2 people for UC.

ive Paid for childcare as most people probably have. Having kids isn’t free. I don’t quite see your point about ‘privilege’ and I’d say you have no clue about anybody else’s circumstances. My costs were higher because there were not 30 hours free. I’m sure everyone can work out ways to reduce nursery fees between 2 parents it’s not rocket science.

you both said £6.50 was expensive, for the service you get it’s really cheap. And the average cost is actually more like £5.20 an hour

How much did you pay?

Compare it to a kids activity class that you have to stay and supervise them at then! Music with mummy is £5 for half an hour..

But that’s not a relevant comparison is it. The nursery won’t be paying to hire a hall for 30 minutes. They won’t have to traipse their guitar and giant parachute around from place to place.

Post a screenshot then because it's very, very different to the results I got and I know I got it right.

Presumably your mortgage and cost of living was lower If your children are older now. Swings and roundabouts. Don't bleet about how you had it so much harder when you've no real idea of how hard it is now.

And no @BungleandGeorge I can't work it out so please can you tell us all? It'll be really helpful. There's such obvious solutions and none of us can see them....

Did you do it as renting? I did it as mortgage. Since housing benefits not got anything to do with childcare....

Well as i say we don't live on one salary now, but if you are referring to my response to the PP upthread where I said I used to be a SAHM- it wasn't because we could actually really afford for me to be by any means (although it did save money on childcare fees and not having to run 2 cars) it was because I had bad postnatal anxiety around DD1's welfare, and literally felt like I could barely trust myself to meet my high expectations of how she should be cared for, not alone anyone else!

I WANTED to return to work part time, but in the mindset I was in back then I could never have brought myself to do so as I would have felt like i would have been failing my child if I did.
We claimed UC alongside DH's relatively low wage to help get us by, but still ended up in debt especially when larger/unexpected expenditures came along such as car bills or Christmas.

Luckily I got CBT when DD1 was a toddler and slowly learnt how to let go and to trust others, so things have been very different with DD2.
(Not that I regret all the lovely times DD1 and I got to spend together)

But we certainly have never been 'financially privileged'...

No. The nursery premises will be a LOT more than a village hall!

Well then surely you can understand that not everyone can afford to work part time or not at all? I'm not sure many of us actually want to work full time and use full time childcare, you know?