Impact of spring budget on childcare costs

[WildWhippet]

Various rumours flying around about Hunt’s proposals for childcare reforms next week.

The following are being widely reported and so I expect are likely.

• An increase in the amount of childcare you can claim for if receiving UC.

• Rather than paying in arrears, the government will pay childcare upfront for those on universal credit.

• Reducing the ration for children over 2 from 1:4 to 1:5 (as it is in Scotland).

That’s it.

Absolutely nothing at all for parents of under 2s - and really, nothing for parents of under 3s.

My childcare bill for one nursery place is £20,000 a year - where’s the help for those on average incomes, or with younger children?

I think if the Government increases ratios then even more Nursery workers will leave the profession. I get paid more per hour in Tesco than I do in the nursery. Not sure what the answer is tbh.

Changing the ratio is not going to help with childcare costs. By doing so they’re essentially expecting childcare settings to do more work for the same pay. I’m a childminder, even if I was bonkers enough to care for more children I wouldn’t lower my prices. I would expect full payment for each child otherwise there is zero incentive for the extra work and stress involved!

I’m really disappointed. I was hoping there would be better support for people not on UC. As of sept I will be another woman that needs to drop out of the workforce as childcare costs exceed my salary.

If ratios increase i along with many others will be leaving a profession that is already understaffed. In fact I’m planning to leave anyway as pay and conditions are so crap and I can’t pay my bills on my wages anymore. Shame they don’t address that in the budget for a change.

By increasing how much UC will contribute means more will be eligible to UC support. You'd be surprised how much you can earn and be able to access UC if you have high childcare costs.

If they properly funded the supposed ‘free’ hours it would go a huge way in helping to make childcare more affordable. People are leaving childcare in droves, settings are closing in droves. Settings are losing valued staff members because they can’t pay them properly, instead of the government addressing this they just want to make their job so much harder

@Oscarover Exactly. So many nurseries closing there won’t be many left to provide all this childcare anyway.

Infact nurseries are so desperate for staff they are taking on highly unsuitable ppl for the role just to cover ratios I think parents need to worry more about who are looking after their children.

Offering more free hours for parents could cause more problems than it solves. The funding per 3-4 year old that providers get from the government is not enough to cover costs, so nurseries charge higher fees for younger children. Non profit organisations only survive by constantly applying for grants from the local council, large companies with charitable foundations etc. Two privately run local nurseries closed in the last two years as the owners concluded it wasn't worth it. If free childcare was expanded without nurseries being properly compensated, many more would close. The system needs a proper overhall.

I'm disappointed there is nothing about availability of childcare, but not surprised. I remember Ed Miliband promising wraparound childcare in every school. (Also the SNP - but that seems to have come to fuck-all)

Yes it's one big fuck off disappointment basically.
Everyone needs to push back against it because it's going to do virtually nothing to help women get back into the workplace after having children. But they won't push back. We'll all just quietly grumble and get on with paying our insurmountable childcare bills and the economy will continue crashing and burning.
In Ireland childcare is free for children over 6 months for everyone under a certain (generous) household income and after that it's a sliding scale. It works really well. I don't understand why we can't do something like that.