To be worried about childcare reform Bill?

[NurseryNurse10]

I work in the nursery sector. Many of you know that it's proposed that the ratio will increase from 1/4 for two year olds to 1/5.
Aibu to say this will be the final nail in the coffin for nurseries and that it also doesn't solve the qualified staffing issue ? Many are unaware that legally you have to have a level 3 and a level 2 in EACH room. Nurseries are having massive issues recruiting qualified staff so this is surely going to make the issue even worse ?

I would rather send my child to a childminder than to a nursery with ratios like that. I know it will also probs mean childminder ratios will change too but I think it would be less chaotic.

I can honestly see there being a mass walk out of nursery staff if this happens. We are already on our knees.

We need to pay our childcare staff more money 💰 it never ceases to amazing me how we hand over our precious children to such under paid people.

My DD being one, the levels are ridiculous

Stand by for the de-professionalisation of the child care industry. Pack them high, sell them cheap.

The deskilling of childcare makes absolutely no sense, time and time again the studies show that early years education is the most important lifestage to get right.

But people are demanding cheaper childcare as well... what is the government meant to do? In Scotland ratios are laxer and across most of Europe too, especially the ones with heavily subsidised childcare. My friend told me there were only 3 carers (one properly qualified) to 20 kids in her DD's childcare in france, plus they had to wait over a year for a place, pay for a private arrangement which was apparently similar priced to the U.K.)

It’s just an excuse from the government not to increase the funding levels. Nurseries can’t operate on those ratios and the government know it. They are making it the providers’ problem to deal with - in other words, there’s no extra money, suit yourselves if you don’t want to employ extra staff, but if you don’t and anything happens, it was your choice and is therefore your fault.

This could all be avoided if they did four things:

1. Made nurseries exempt from paying business rates
2. Capped rents on D1 buildings
3. Removed the requirement for private nurseries to pay VAT on goods and services (as they have for maintained nurseries)
4. Paid the funding directly to the nurseries and cut out the local authorities

Of course, nurseries are not unionised, so there is no one fighting their corner who isn’t in it for themselves. Plus, the nursery owners are too exhausted to fight. Because of this, nothing ever changes. But it could if the government really wanted it to. And with very little input.

I didn’t realise it wasn’t already 1/5 in England. It is in Scotland. The nursery we use is having a nightmare trying to recruit, there was even talk that they might close one of the age groups because they just can’t get the staff. I’m not sure what the answer is though. If they changed it to 1/4 here the nursery we use would need even more staff and it would be even harder for them to stay open. It’s also hard because nursery staff are so poorly paid but parents are paying huge fees (it’s over £1600 per month for a full time place at the nursery we use). I wonder if any other countries have a better system.

Literally every other country has a better system
We could learn so much from most other countries. I understand Germany and Scandi countries have great systems. But we won't learn and we all get stuck in this rat race instead.

I’m a childminder, I won’t be altering my ratio. Even if I was insane enough to accept more children I would still charge them the full rate so it’s not saving parents any money 🤷🏼‍♀️. There’s no way I would accept extra stress, extra expenses, extra work, extra damage to my home all for the same money I’m on now with less children. Why would I work even harder than I do with no financial gain, there’s literally no incentive there!

Why is 1/5 acceptable in Scotland but not acceptable in England? Do the Scottish Govt get a pass here but the U.K. Govt get lambasted for moving to the same ratios as Scotland ?

Apologies if i'm being stupid, how would you not be earning more money if your ratios were changed and you took in more children?

I don’t know anyone demanding cheaper childcare but we have to square it with the rising cost of living and it being actually financially viable to go out to work. I don’t want to pay less, but I actually can’t pay any more.

What I fear will happen is that nurseries that operate in affluent areas and already charge big money will keep their 1:3/1:4 ratios and it’ll create a two tier system in quality of care, making ‘good’ or ‘excellent ‘ nurseries the preserve of the more well off, a bit like private schools.

Everybody always says nursery staff are so poorly paid but the majority of fees does in fact cover wages. I wonder how much you all think a qualified nursery nurse gets paid an hour, out of interest? Btw just to be clear i am not by any means saying they don't deserve more, it's a very stressful job but also lots of fun and very rewarding.

Because it’s expected I would lower my hourly rate to make it more affordable for parents.

But if the ratio is 1 to 5 in Scotland, why is it unworkable in the U.K.?

Seems like a sensible solution.

If it was currently 1 to 5, we would all get on with it and consider it the norm. Something has to give surely.

If a nursery changes to the higher ratios of children to staff, those staff will have to work harder than those in other nurseries. So they'll need paying more, which cancels out the benefit.
Also, the care WILL be less good. It's normally tricky to identify poor nurseries but with this system you may as well have signs out the front saying "we're crap but cheap!"
It'll never work.

Exactly. Nurseries would just take in more children, they wouldn't lower prices. Which is fine, they're businesses and I know they struggle massively, I wouldn't blame them. But it's really annoying for the government to attempt to sell this as a way to reduce costs to parents.

Absolutely, as a childminder I will not be raising my ratios. Its not safe and honestly I wish to keep my sanity.

But people are demanding cheaper childcare as well... what is the government meant to do?

Subsidize it? Like in other countries??? Canada? Scandinavia? Germany? You know, where everyone is emigrating to?

The ads I’ve seen show the hourly rate as being under £11 per hour, in my opinion that’s not much for the stress and responsibility of looking after 3 babies/ young toddlers per staff member all day, but I’m also not saying that the nursery could reasonably pay much more, as they are only getting £6.30 per hour per baby so the margins are small.

Does anyone really think it is reasonable to expect poorly paid child care workers to increase their workload by 20% with no increase in wages!

Baby room leader is on something silly like £10.45.
Laughable. She's got decades of experience, level 3 qualified and yet gets peanuts.
Anyone who says a 1/5 ratio in a nursery of 2 year olds is a good thing has clearly never done an 8-6 shift in a nursery. It just doesn't work. Why would someone do all that when they could go into something like retail, better pay and less stress?

The problem is parents are already paying considerably more per child than any other country in Europe.
Early years education and childcare needs significant government support. On average it costs almost £15,000 per year for a two year old.

My nursery def pays above average then RLs are on £12.50 an hour. Maybe the fees are higher too to cover that i guess.