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!

Yes my mum said she doesn’t remember childcare costs being a big deal at all. I went to a childminder full time from 6 months and she wasn’t in a well paid job but still must have been worth it versus staying home and living in my dads salary. think it was about £20 a week in early 80s, I’m sure i remember her giving checks for £50 a week in the mid 90s when i went in the holidays - I haven’t done the maths how this compares to now though

Same in England though but ours still have to pay £9250 a year.

Oh OP that sucks. It was clear from when the government announced it it wasn't going to fix the childcare problem.

Our bill will go down as DD has until now been too young to claim the free hours.

However, we can only use the free hours between 8-4pm. And on any days we use free hours, even 1, even if DD is only there for breakfast, we need to pay £12.50 for 'food'. In reality this is making up the shortfall the govement isn't paying. No option to bring a packed lunch. My DD's longest day is 8hrs so actually for us £1 an hour would be better!

Our fees increased quite a bit in January and I expect there will be a big jump next year.

That's nonsense. It was £22 a day in the very early 90s when I had my oldest.

I feel a bit aggrieved about this too. DS turned 3 earlier this year, so is entitled to 30 hours from April - he's our younger so it already felt like a slight kick in the teeth that hours for 2 year olds were coming in at the exact point we'd no longer benefit from them after 5 years of paying one or more sets of full nursery fees. But then - of course, inevitably - nursery have announced that they are putting up their 'consumables' charge (clearly actually a top-up fee). They've always had one and I understand why and I understand why they put it up further with the extension of the funding to 2 year olds but I do feel annoyed that a poorly thought-out, underfunded government scheme isn't benefitting us at all but is costing us extra money through its introduction.

£22 in 1990 would be £51.03 today. I would love to pay that as a daily rate!

I agree - we are in the same position, finally getting to the 3 year point to benefit from the free/funded hours. And our nursery has jumped the prices so we are effectively funding 2 years olds to benefit from something we never had.

I know that's life etc etc but it does feel like a kick in the teeth.

hmm I’m not going to argue as I’m not 100% but this was my childminder (not a nursery) who I know was very reasonable. I was probably more referring to early 90s as would have stopped going to childminder by mid. This large childminder commissioned report and survey from 2000 says the lower end was £1.74/hour which is £70 /week so I don’t think £50 per week 7 years earlier is that far off https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/4154485.pdf
edit to say the report also says low pay was
one reason for childminders quitting. Although for mine is was the prohibitive ofsted that took the joy out of it for her and impinged too much on her home life (I guess taking into account the low renumeration)

It absolutely does feel like a kick in the teeth - it's the most annoying thing that's happened to us since we bought a house the week before the 2020 stamp duty holiday was announced.

On reflection, Rishi Sunak might have it in for me...

I agree. We've just been told our nursery are putting their fees up by £7.50 a day per child (we have two) plus changing the way they calculate "free" hours and adding an hourly fee on top for each free hour to cover their costs.

Oh wow mine is only increasing by £71 per month but then also being decreased by around £150 per month with the free hours so I'm still gaining.

They aren’t free hours, they are funded hours. Unfortunately it sounds as if your nursery was operating rather uncommonly which is, in large part, why it could no longer sustain itself.

It’s an unpopular opinion, but in my view many nurseries are poorly financially managed. They do not benefit from experienced finance directors who can help them maximise and successfully manage their budgets, but see instead managed by a nursery worker who has risen up the ranks to manager – yes by being a brilliant nursery practitioner but unfortunately not with any experience in business or finance acumen.

I think a lot of the increase isn't to do with this though, it's just increases in other costs and NMW etc.

If you had children slightly later you would benefit from the increase in funded hours more as the difference is making funding available for younger children. So it's costing you more but others will benefit (not helpful to you I know).

I have a just turned 4yo and worked out the total cost of nursery from start to finish for him will have been £11k.

My 3 months old will be a total of £7k. And the 3 month old will have been at nursery about 4 months longer due to time of year born. It would have been even cheaper than the £7k if born a year later.

So the reforms will save me £4k overall, despite substantial price increases.

Consumables are also for things like paper, paint, pens, glue, glitter, seeds, compost, plasters and other first aid supplies, etc. I’m sure your children make use of these things.

Finished paying for DS university. 60k for three years. The university own most of the halls. Now they want to increase tuition fees again.

I'm not really up to date with this as I don't use childcare but what I don't understand is why the government instead of having contracts with nurseries to provide free childcare can't just pay a subsidy direct to parents who then source the childcare they feel appropriate.

Although it would mean that there may not be free childcare at least the costs would be reduced and nurseries wouldn't be adversely affected.

Apologies if I've misunderstood how it actually works.

Fees are rising at my nursery by 10% due to the 15 hours. I get 30 funded hours for my nearly 4 year old but will have to wait until September before my nearly 2 year old benefits.

I worked FT for a year after my eldest was born and had to work FT for 5 months after my second. I quickly realised that even with term time only due to price rises I would burn thorough my tax-free childcare allowance very quickly so managed to switch to 4 days per week.

I am glad mine have places as I think finding childcare will become harder with these funding changes. The tax-free child care amount and the child benefit threshold need to rise to help alleviate some of the increased staffing and energy costs.

As a country we need to encourage people to have children otherwise we won’t have enough working to support an ageing population. I imagine a lot more people will think again before having more than one child.

Same as up here in Scotland. We get 1140 hours free funding per year for pre school kids 3+. My local nursery has pulled out of the scheme entirely because they were losing money on the scotgov rate! We are now £90pd with nmw increase.

Ours are going up by £12 a day , and I don't get the funded hours yet either, as I have a baby.
So I will be paying 1700 a month for one child.

I don't know what to do, it was hard enough before the increase.

Because the whole point is for the government to reap the rewards of being seen to magnanimously providing parents with free childcare and boost its image.

In reality, it’s childcare providers who are subsidising the funded hours and if the government give parents the money directly, parents will very quickly realise how inadequate the funding is and how little it will get them.

How much was childcare then? The cheapest nursery near me is £2,000 a month for one child, four days a week. The costs are extortionate now, they weren't in the past

There are only 2 nurseries in our town, only 1 within reasonable walking distance and they have already said due to the new scheme they won’t be able to take my daughter in September, she’s been on the waiting list for a year, they can’t have any new starters in 2024 so have no idea what we are going to do, as the other nursery has a 2 year wait list and is a 40 min walk away and no busses 🙃

A very similar thing already exists with care homes. Some are opting for ‘self funders’ over ‘state funders’ as they know they can get more money

Meanwhile half the parents claiming free hours are sat at home claiming uc with no intention off getting a job!

Why the duck are the Government not paying the real hourly rate of childcare/nursery provision?

Bloody Tory Gov are a lame joke!