To think a lot of people without kids don’t understand how free hours work?

[whatkatydid2014]

I’ve seen so many comments on threads about costs of childcare asking what more do people want when they already get x amount free.

Just wondering for some of those posters do you realise the extent to which the way “free” hours are managed is problematic for those working full time.

Imagine you have 20 full time places for 3 year olds at nursery and the cost to operate is £100/day per place for a 10 hour day. Current funding allows £6/hour (it will go up but hasn’t yet) for 30 hours a week and it covers about the equivalent of 2 days a week across a calendar year.

Now imagine 30 kids in total use the places (10 full time, 10 2 days a week, 10 3 days a week). In total you get an income for 100 days/week across all 20 kids

All kids get their 30 hours (2 days) as it’s based on both parents working and earning above a certain amount. Thats 60 days a week you only earn £60/day for.

Over the remaining 40 days you have to get back to your average of £100/day so the rate for the extra days is now £160

So the parent who would previously have paid £500 for a full week now pays £480 for 3 days (basically no saving)

The parent who would previously have paid £200 for 2 days does now have free childcare

The parent who would previously have paid £300 for 3 days now pays £160 so has a saving but not equivalent to 2/3 off their bill.

The bigger the gap between actual cost to run nursery at a profit and the government rate the worse the problem. At the moment, in some cases the gaps are so big & cost of living rises so steep that parents end up paying more when they get the free hours than they were without them.

My kids are already finished nursery and when they went this was a much smaller issue as the funded rates were not so far off the actual costs so I’ve no skin in the game but for all the “what more do you want” people - I think a system where the government is transparent about what people are actually getting AND a fairer way to split the subsidy between part time and full time nursery places

Because I’m year round, I will get 11 hours a week. But there’s a £2.50 surcharge per “free hour” so even when baby is there for 18 hours a week, I will still be paying £87.50 a week.

It is a saving, because prior to that coming in I’ll be paying £153 a month. But it’s certainly not a case of me just paying for the hours outside of the free hours. It’s a bloody head fuck trying to work it all out to be honest.

Seriously? What do you think full time working parents do?
8am-6pm, 5 days a week calculates to how many hours?

Or how about people pay for their own kids and stop expecting the taxpayer to?

I don’t disagree - but it’s businesses who are using the free childcare to underpay staff - those with small children think they are getting a ‘free’ benefit when what they actually have is a reduction in salary - because you should be able to afford it - money in your pocket from your employers - which you then get all your working life: the government have you believe that they are doing you a favour whilst they shady you from behind.

I don't think OP is bashing the child-free. I think she is simply highlighting that those who are not currently accessing funded childcare for various reasons are fed this idea by the government that there is finally free childcare provision for working parents. Under this false guise - what more could we want? Looks great on paper and will definitely earn brownie points for the polls! Where as in reality the funding offered by the government is too low to make the said hours free. Where I live the funding simply gets deducted of the final bill. And as most childcare settings are private businesses, they still need to be profitable. As a result, there have been extortionate price increases for the last 3 years, to keep up with the energy price increases, national minimum wage increases and the underfunding from the government... In the settings that did offer the actual hours free, I have observed even larger price increases to the private fees in order to make up the for the losses that happen when providing 'free' hours. It's a vicious cycle really: government increase living wages, childcare providers have to increase their prices to cover pay rises for their staff, working people cannot afford childcare due to said increases, government increase wages again... And yes, increasing wages is a good thing (put down your pitchforks) but this cycle of unaffordable childcare will continue for as long as it remains private business in need of profit!

I’m a project manager for IT implementations. It’s just really noticeable that people are very aggressive about how much parents get already lately and I wonder if they know how this works at all. I know some nurseries have minimum use policies to prevent only using free hours but even then the supplement tends to hit those using nursery full time worst.

I’m not criticising them though. I’m asking if it’s unreasonable to think they don’t understand how something works and that might be why some amongst them are so unceasing in their insistence parents get things that actually many of them who are struggling with costs may not

My grandson comes to us on Mondays and goes to nursery tues and wed.His nursery have said they cannot afford to give 15 free hours so for every paid day they will do a free day up to the 15 hours total.

I don't have kids and I get that childcare is expensive for parents but I think the problem is mainly caused by having a 3:1 staff ratio. In some countries it's more like 4:1 or 6:1 which does make a difference when salaries are the biggest cost.

Or we could be more like Denmark, one of the happiest and most content peoples in the world. They do almost everything better than we do (including giving their kids more freedom, responsibility and no beige kid food) and they don’t pay more than 25% of the cost of their childcare.

Ah OK so you're a parent explaining how your nursery implements the funding?

This certainly isn't a blanket policy to charge parents who use full time care more to make up the gaps and have the part time children benefitting the most from it.

My funding model for my setting is very different to the one you have explained.

As a PR exercise it works, because it sounds like a generous free childcare package and a lot of people don't know or care how it really works.
My kids are grown up, but when I had my kids, my colleagues thought I was rolling in free money provided by them as taxpayers. One told me I'd get a large amount of child tax credit, because he looked it up online and didn't realise it was means tested, so I only got a small fraction of the maximum. Another thought I got the nursery fees completely free, not realising that the (huge) fees were deducted from my salary and the only benefit was the tax reduction.

It was then, and still is, a definite strategy by the Government to make people think parents get generous handouts.

I think OP it would've been better to be specific that it's not childfree people you have an issue with. It's childfree people who have no idea how nursery funding works but don't let that stop them from getting into arguments about it on the Internet. Though even then, there are people who've had DC who also fall into that category.

Of course it's not going to be something you need to worry about if you don't have children and I don't think that's what the op is saying. I think what she is talking about is the comments from people berating this policy and asking why parents should get even more benefits for having children. What op has explained is how it works and why it really isn't what the Government is portraying it to be. For parents with children in nursery it is a huge problem, for people without children / not in nursery it isn't.

You aren't being unreasonable for pointing out that a lot of people don't understand how it works now. You are very unreasonable for using it as a stick to beat childfree people with because a lot of parents of older children wouldn't have a clue either.

I'm another one who supports actual free childcare btw.

It should just be called "funded hours" or "subsidised hours"

You mean anyone who doesn’t have nursery age kids or make use or have made use of the free hours? There are plenty of people with kids who don’t understand how it works. Or do you think that as soon as someone gives birth that they acquire an innate understanding of how a confusing system works?

No my children also aren’t going to nursery. It’s a super simple example to try and show the underfunding issue.
some funding models will be less extreme but fundamentally the one described is the type that causes costs to barely change or even to go up for some people when new free hours get introduced. It was very prevalent when the free hours were first introduced and when they were raised from 15-30.

A childminder friend charges a flat rate sustainability fee. This means that parents are paying 23% of what they used to. It’s still a huge saving, a 77% discount makes a big difference. She still gets grief for even suggesting the charge with some parents who enquire about spaces. People see the magical word ‘free’ and that’s what they expect. One family actually told her it wasn’t their problem it’s so underfunded and she should cover the defecit herself!

I think if people have kids and use the system they come to learn the issues with it. I think if people have no kids they are as capable of understanding how it works as anyone else but if all they know about it comes from headlines they have a false perception of what individuals actually receive. I genuinely do wonder if the people who come and say “why should I pay anymore for your children when you already get x/y/z” have an understanding beyond the headline and just think there shouldn’t be funding at all or if they believe people genuinely get 30 hours of childcare every week and are thinking that’s well over half covered by the tax payer and then they get tax free childcare on top and that already seems a lot

The £500 is what you're given tho so £500 per quarter so would help with £2000 of your childcare for the 3m

I agree the issue is the free hours wording.

I work 29hrs a week and get the "free" 30hrs for my 3yr old. Monthly nursery bill is still around £430, better than it used to be but at £400+ the free element is very deceptive!

I think a lot of people with kids don't understand how the 'free hours' work.
Potentially because of the government using the word 'free' when it's actually extremely unlikely to mean you get to send your child to nursery for free, but they get to sound better to the uninitiated and pat themselves on the back for all they do for us parents.
I didn't realise until I actually looked it up that it doesn't mean 'free' - I have found that the nursery uses the term 'funded hours' which is more accurate and manages expectations a little better!
It does however work out as a reduction for most people at least.

Yes you're right they probably don't, but it's not really relevant or of interest to most of them/us, is it? It's of prime interest to parents of tinies, who are only a part of the workforce.

I'm long past that stage, so I don't care and I'm not interested in the mechanics/ ins and outs of how it works, and I imagine that's how it is for most people.

What?

If I am given £500 per quarter, it only helps reduce my bill by £500 per quarter.

It doesn't pay for £2,000 of childcare per quarter.

My nursery regularly increases the fees for all ages, so that when you do get funded hours they are fully funded and no supplements to pay etc.

honestly can’t wait to get my funded hours!
I will get 2.5 days funded per week and only pay for 1.5.