To be worried about the new 30 hours?

[idontknow54789]

I was to start this by saying I know we are very fortunate but as my partner earns £100k we don't get the free 30 hours of childcare. We're in London however and our mortgage is huge and my salary really isn't. Without the 30 hours our childcare bill is as higher than my wage - it's fine, we can pretty much cover this and is worth it for pension, my own independence etc. When the free hours is extended to 1 and 2 year olds we can be pretty certain it will be very badly funded (as it is now) so the nurseries will surely have to up their prices to make up for the shortfall?

I know we are in a privileged position to have one high earner (with living/mortgage costs in London though we don't go on holiday apart from camping or visiting family and can't move due to partner's work - he goes into the office).

And without afterschool clubs at my sons school we have to use a childminder - she's already £40 a day for wraparound care - this is going to go up as well isn't it??

And before I get a bashing for being in a good position - does everyone else realize the cost of childcare is going to go up to make up for the shortfall - meaning the 30 free hours won't make a huge difference, just a way to get the votes in for the Tories 😖

I’m not in the same position and would benefit from any additional ‘free hours’ however what I think should be proposed is a subsidised fee rather than ‘free’ hours so families receiving the subsidy have to make up the shortfall. I.e, a nursery gets £4 pH but it actually costs £7, to make up the £30 per day etc. it’ll be significantly lower than a full time place cost but hopefully those on lower income jobs won’t be paying their monthly salary on a childcare place. However, with everything, everyone has a choice whether to have children or not. I agree it shouldn’t fall on those not eligible to make up the shortfall but I’d certainly be happy paying a top up fee.

I agree. Unless it is properly funded, it is going to be a disaster

It seems to be suggested that the amount paid to the provider will be higher than it was previously.

What are you actually ‘worried’ about? That you will have to pay more? Or annoyed that you aren’t paying less?

Even in London 100k plus something like 30k is still a very night household income and there has to be a sliding scale so those who need it are helped more rather than topping up those who don’t.

There are families genuinely struggling with the cost of childcare, I don’t believe you actually are on your income so you are being pretty unreasonable with your ‘concern’.

Yes you have a 'choice' to have children but you also make decisions based on the situation at the time. A few years ago my childminder charged £25 for wraparound care, it's now £40. And if she's going to need to up her hourly rate to make up for the government shortfall elsewhere this suddenly becomes unaffordable for most

I also think a top up charge on the second half of the ‘free’ hours would limit those who use them for the sake of it.
It seems unfair for someone to make full use of the 30 hours if they aren’t even working full time.
If you had to pay the per hour difference it’s likely the demand would level out a bit as everyone would only use what they needed and then there would be more availability for those seeking full time places or who genuinely needed the hours for work.

I earn over £100,000 per year too, with a 3yo and a 6mo. They’re proposing to increase the funding per hour too and wraparound provision. You should be fine. At the very least, the overall boost to the economy will benefit us indirectly to a greater extent (i.e. we might pay £10 per week more for childcare but the £ will go up against the $ to an amount more than £10 per week).

I’m in the same situation as you OP and am also worried. We are in a privileged position but our mortgage on a modest two bed flat is due to rise hugely and I’m worried about how much nursery fees will go up or if nurseries will be forced to close if the government fail to fund this properly. It’s fantastic news for many people and I hugely welcome it although I won’t benefit but I just hope they’ve costed it all.
As an aside it’s frustrating that two parents earning £99k would be eligible for the hours but a couple with one on £100k and one on £18k would not.

I find comments like this really odd because don’t most people pay a top up? I’m paying full whack for the non term time hours plus a top up fee for all the ‘free’ hours supposedly to cover lunches, trips out etc. My child attends for 30 hours a week and I still pay the nursery something like £450 a month. So what more do people want?!

Sorry, that was in response to @Fran92 about this being a subsidised fee rather than ‘free’ hours.

Yes you're right - I'm happy to pay more for a benefit to the economy. I'm also really hoping DS's school takes up the wraparound offer.

Have only scanned your OP but I was thinking similarly this morning. We each earn approx £60K and we live in a cheap part of the country. The idea that we could get more help than a single parent on £100K seems all wrong.

That’s what I’m saying, most already do in effect have a subsided fee so to bring that in for 1/2 year olds would need to be the same. Nurseries / child care settings won’t be sustainable on the gov funding alone so rather than putting up prices for all day etc and relying on that outside of free hours / non term time it should be classed as subsidised fee and everyone tops up hourly for the hours used / booked out etc.

Aren't there some tax incentives that your DH or you can use?

There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

People will pay for it in other ways.

Nursery fees will go up to cover the shortfall, taxes in other areas will go up to cover the cost of this.

I read 1p a day increase in income tax would cover it.

We're in the same position, DH is over the £100k threshold so won't benefit from the free hours, annoying as we have a 10 month old so the timing would have been right! We do get 15 hours for our older dd and that's handy as we can even use it on prep school fees. One advantage of not having the 30 free hours is that we've never had to limit our childcare search to those nurseries that accept it - dd's old Montessori nursery didn't, nor many of the other popular local nurseries.

I think the quality of care will go down, especially if the ratios for 2 year olds changes. Mine is 7 now so makes no difference to me either way, but I hate to think of babies/toddlers crammed into inadequate settings as that’s the only choice families have. I would much prefer a smaller offer with a higher quality of care.