Government's 'free' childcare has caused my childcare to increase by £378 a month!!

[Holdmyrice]

I've been waiting on it as I knew it was coming but we got the letter today highlighting the changes the nursery are going to need to make in order to make the government funding work and keep them afloat!
They used to offer An hourly rate and we used and paid for the hours that best suited us, 8-4. They will no longer offer this and will from April only allow the full day of 8-6 so 2 extra hours we don't need we need to pay for. On top of this, they're now charging a 'quality' fee of £1 for 'free' hours. We provide lunch and nappies and wipes so although I know it's common for nursery to charge for these things once the 'free' hours kick in, ours never have and my 3 year olds 'free' hours were actually free. Not anymore!
And to top it off, they're also raising their basic charge 9.8% in line with NMW increase!

So in total and including taking tax free childcare into account, for my 1 year old and 3 year old I will be paying a grand total of £378 a month more than I am now!!!

It's an amazing nursery and to be clear, I am not angry with them! This is the wretched government who have promised something they never had any intention to deliver! The amount they are paying nurseries for these 'free' hours was never going to be sustainable and frankly, I should probably just feel lucky that my nursery haven't just decided to close their doors!
Thank you very much Tories you absolute twats!

When the changes were first proposed, I seem to recall someone in the Guardian (where else!) predicting this would be the outcome in many cases.

Surprising they were allowing you to only pay for certain hours to be honest. Full day or half day as standard where I am.

Like many of their policies, they don't care how it works in practice, they just care about the headline it generates such as "free childcare".

Could you claim any help towards the additional amount?

Unfortunately you have no bargaining power. It’s so unfair as another parent will snap up your place. At least it’s only until reception. Can you look at a nursery linked to the school you are hoping your child will go to? That might be cheaper and more beneficial.

This Makes me so mad. Not least for the poor nursery owners who must be tearing their hair out trying to make all this work.

There are only two nurseries in our town and both now have a closing time of 5.00! It is a nightmare and yes, caused by a government promise that the nurseries had to fulfil.

Can you increase your work hours to cover it?

It would be less annoying for a 3yo where more likely to cope with increased hours.
Surely you now need to pay for tea there too?

Surprise surprise-nobody with an ounce of sense could possibly have predicted this would happen!

This government just want catchy headlines and don’t give a shite about the majority of people.

I know a lot of nurseries do full or half days, but this one has always done hourly. It was also reflected in the hourly price which was already higher than many places were for a full day.

My oldest will be starting in reception in September so there is that! Unfortunately they don't have a pre-school attached to either of her two top choices so we can't look to move her and we wouldn't want to. It really is a great nursery. We will just have to suck it up until September when the price will come down slightly with only our 1 year old in; which I appreciate we are in a very privileged position that we can do. It's just so infuriating that this is the direct result of the government 'promising' to make it cheaper!!! You almost couldn't make it up.

I fully expected it! Not exactly this. I had predicted the change to a full day only I thought they might do. The sudden extra £1 an hour for 'free' hours was unexpected given they don't offer any consumables like lunch or nappies.

@CandiCaneicles we will still pick them up at 4 because we can do, we just have to pay until 6. They don't actually provide food, we send it in so we don't need to pay for tea and as they won't actually be staying we don't need to faff about sending tea with them either at least.

Yes this is sadly the result of the government making a hoo ha about funding something they’re not actually going to fund. My 3yo now gets funded hours, but as the rate is more than £2 less than our childminders hourly rate we’re topping it up to what she actually charges. They expected nurseries to charge younger children more before, but childminders don’t work like that. I’d love early years to actually be respected for the critical stage it is and be properly funded. Our childminder provides an amazing education but is treated as barely more than a babysitter by the funding system.

Always endless moaning about childcare so lets just scap the whole funded system and people can pay for it themselves.l and our taxes can go and be used to fund councils or something else where it will be appreciated more.

The OP's point is not that childcare is expensive. It's that the government will point to this as a family-friendly policy come election time, when they're offering nurseries about £3 an hour to cover the "free" provision. This means the nurseries are having to just add a few quid per hour on for the 1 year olds and add a load of service charges. It is absolute bollocks, a waste of money, and most of us saw through this from day one.

It won’t do much but I’d write to my MP about this to let them know my absolute disdain for the gov’s terrible policies!

Well done for publicising this here. Tory soundbites and headlines built on nothing and miscommunication the message. ‘FREE’. Haha

Knowing how government departments work, there will have been very little communication about the likely success of the offer.

There will be many in the same situation or worse as providers are unable to meet demand, can't find staff or close.

Parents should be raising this with their MP, time and time again.

https://www.bracknellnews.co.uk/news/national/24135848.many-childcare-providers-will-struggle-meet-demand-places-says-charity/

I'm sorry but did you not go to school and learn to read?
Isn't the exact point of my post that actually, in this instance I really wish the government had kept their bloody noses well out of it! I was perfectly fine paying for my children's childcare before they offered to fund it for me!

Lack of access to childcare is one of the biggest barriers to employment and it is an issue that predominantly impacts women and their career prospects. Parents should be able to access high quality childcare and, yes, the government does have a responsibility to assist with this as it benefits our society as a whole.

It's rubbish. But I do understand the £1 tbh, the government aren't funding it properly therefore someone has to pay so that the businesses don't close for good.

Essentially op you are subsidising poorer parents of younger children who can't be charged more on top of the government funding.

Its not a well thought out system. Overtime nurseries will set up who will opt not to offer any funded hours so that they don't have to up their basic rate to cross subsidise. You'll then get a divided system, with poor quality badly funded nurseries limping along offering funded hours, and better funded "private" options. Poor children will only be able to access the badly funded free hours provision and poverty gap will be exacerbated.

I think a lot of nurseries will go under because of the government's lack of proper funding to back up their plans. I'm really surprised that you could pick and choose your hours up until now though. Everywhere I looked into offered set full or half days 🤷‍♀️

Grandchildren were at a very small nursery numbers wise in Wales . The owner refused the free hours contract because the government red tape and the time it took to receive the money from them. Three nurseries I know of just shut down because of this.

Two of our local nurseries shut in July-they couldn’t make ends meet with the increased rent/energy bills and increases in minimum wage, let alone this debacle.

I have seen a huge number of posts on here with people excitedly counting down to when their ‘free’ childcare starts. I think there will be a lot of very disappointed people-some whose bill will actually go up, others who can’t get a space when they want one and people who don’t think any of this concerns them as they are happy to pay and have a space now but don’t realise that their nursery will have to close.

It was a crap ‘back of a fag packet’ plan with insufficient funding and no thought given to if there would be enough places. It’s as if all they were thinking about was the ‘free childcare’ headline…

The hours were never 'free' - everybody including the nurseries knew that or they failed to use common sense.

They are funded hours - hours at a discount NOT free.

Be grateful that you get all the help you do - when I was working full time as a single parent in the 1970s/80s I had to pay my own childcare not even the refund of tax on the payments.

If I’ve got it right you just paid for hours as and when you needed

from a business point of view it must be extremely hard to make it viable you can’t pay for staff not knowing if they would be required