AIBU to feel annoyed about ‘free childcare’

[CoolMoose]

My 2yo has just started to receive the ‘free’ 15 hours. AIBU to feel like it’s such a joke?! He attends full time at nursery and our bill has reduced from £1600 a month to just shy of £1400 a month (£240 a month reduction). They only offer the funding stretched (you can’t just access the free childcare) and you have to pay for ‘add on’ costs. It’s £15 a day for food….a 2yo doesn’t eat that much, surely! In addition, you have to pay full fees for bank holiday closures.

I have an older child and this is definitely getting worse and worse for families even with extra government funding. When my older child was little I paid £550-600 a month for full time childcare without funding and about £150-200 a month with funding (10 years ago).

Yup. Our free hours are only saving me £30 a week. The breakdown of the food costs I’m now being charged for are even worse - eg £2.50 for breakfast - she got half a slice of toast with butter on.

Unfortunately a lot of nurseries can’t afford to run without asking for the extra charges. When my then 3yo qualified for the free hours I was also surprised that the bill hadn’t reduced by much but I had a very open conversation with the manager and she explained how they would have to shut if they didn’t charge the extras.

Yeah it's frustrating. I understand why, but I have family members going 'soon you'll get free hours so what's the fuss about?' I pay 1700 a month for ONE child. That's what the fuss is about.

Who should be responsible child care costs?

The government purposely makes the funding far too low for any nursery or childminder to survive. Where we live it is funded well enough that a the top up for a fulltime place is £120 a month for the first child, and £80 a month for subsequent children.

£15 a day for food 😱

It's not the nursery's fault. The government are lying about this, claiming that it's "free" but only giving the nursery about half the real cost of providing it. It's simply not possible for them to function without using some kind of complex financial rules that oblige you to make up the difference. There are a few council-run nurseries that offer the funded hours genuinely free but the difference in quality of toys/facilities/activities is very obvious if you compare them with a nursery that does make other charges. And of course these are usually places that only open for school term times.

It's totally reasonable for a nursery to only offer the funded hours "stretched" if they are open all year around - It's not like there's much demand for a "school holidays only" nursery place and they have to pay rent and bills and salaries every month. The nurseries that can reasonably support term-time-only places tend to be based in schools or in council-owned building where they aren't paying commercial rent.

This! It’s in the interests of everyone that women can go to work, and sadly it is always women who miss out if childcare is inaccessible.

It’s frustrating in the same way that many of the older generation don’t understand how hard it is to buy a house these days. ‘The government have made childcare free - what are you complaining about?’. But they haven’t. They really haven’t.

they’ll use ‘free’ childcare boost their chances in the election, and you are glad of a bit of a reduction in bills, but it is certainly not free.

I agree OP. But what about this government’s record made anyone think a “free” anything from them would be worth anything.

It's term time only as well isn't it?

It’s the not the nursery’s fault that it’s not sustainable. Why don’t you look at other nurseries and see what they offer instead?

The funded childcare is relatively new and plenty of families didn’t get it at all.

Surprise surprise, the government have implemented a plan that won’t work and told everyone they are giving them ‘free’ childcare!

We have lost three nurseries around here recently as they just can’t afford to keep the business going-it’s not viable. So many people seem to not have been listening to what the childcare workforce have been saying about this plan and are assuming their household will be getting a massive savings. It’s probably more likely they will lose their nursery place altogether when it closes.

It’s rather like NHS dentistry really. Yes, it’s amazing and yes, you might be entitled to it, but…if you can’t find one prepared to take you on, then you have to pay full whack.

Unless another 40,000 people are persuaded to work in childcare (with all the minimum wage inflexible hours it offers), then it will never get off the ground. The government might try to entice a few people from abroad to come and do it (but they can’t bring their families with them here to do so…).

I totally understand. My DS is 2 soon and will get the hours from Sept. Unfortunately the additional daily costs is standard and it isn’t the nursery’s fault at all. We’re moving my son to somewhere cheaper but his current nursery, if he stayed there, charge £20 a day for funded days. The charge isn’t just for food and drink though - if it was I’d say don’t pay and send your child with a packed lunch and snacks. It’s to keep the nursery running. It’s for resources while they’re there - so the pens, pencils, paint, paper, wipes, nappies (if provided), drinks and snacks, books, play equipment and it’s upkeep, general upkeep of the building, paying the utility bills, use of outdoor equipment/forest school if there is one, replacing toys, furniture as they get broke or tired etc. The funded hours from gov basically cover the cost of the staffs wage and nothing else (sometimes not even that), so the childcare provider has to find a way to cover the costs for everything else or they’d have to close.

I agree with you, for parents it’s awful financially. We had such a relief when they announced this funding and then when we looked into it realised we wouldn’t be much better off. My DS goes 5 days a week like yours (we recently dropped to 3 afternoons and 2 full days as DH temporarily works shifts atm), but before that it was £1500-£1600 a month and now it’s £1200-1300 a month. He’ll be back full time by the time he gets the 15 hours and so his bill would actually be more than we pay now (due to the daily top up charge) if he was staying at his current nursery. We had to make the really difficult decision to move him. He loves where he is - and so so we - but we can’t afford to keep him there. We found a preschool that’s £20 a day cheaper and takes from age 2, they don’t have a daily top up for funded hours but instead everyone, using the hours or not, pays an additional £20 per week for resources and consumables.

£200 last month for 20 hours 'free' childcare. we've just fallen out with the nursery after an increase from £15 to £20 a day. When we challenged the director he said if we don't like it we can leave. We're going to the ombudsman. Even if it comes to nothing, the stress of pulling together the information required is making me feel better.

Yup…same situation, I think all in all it saves about £100 a month when I was expecting £200. Due to fees going up and it being stretched. In January they will be term time only and will get the 30 so will see bigger savings then, then school before you know it. This is my last child being out through expensive nursery so it’s def a feeling of neeearly theeere nooow…if Jeremy Hunts purpose to the free hours was to get mums back to work it’s not going to work though. Honestly think the only people it’s benefitting are people like me already in work and with a child in nursery, so we suddenly have £30 extra money a week (which will prob go on stuff for the kids and bills anyway). It won’t get more women into work..

I imagine the food costs also include the costs of running and staffing a kitchen, cooking, etc. Not just the price of a piece of toast.

Really annoying that the government is faffing around with 'free' hours and VAT on school fees instead of doing something that would really make a difference, like providing nurseries with low rent.

When my oldest first went to nursery it was £35 a day. That was 11 years ago. It’s now £65 a day for my youngest…

At my nursery the free hours have to be taken as one full day and one half day or 3 half days. The cost of a half day is only £20 less than a full day so by the time you’ve paid food and an add on it won’t be much of a saving if using a full time place.

Im fortunate I have family help and a flexible job and can work round it so won’t be paying much at all when it becomes available in sept for my then nearly 2 year old.

Legally nurseries have to offer the funding completely free. The top up is a contribution you can opt out of. So if you provide your own food, crafts , nappies etc u don't pay the top up.

The reality is if everyone did this nurseries would shut.

They can offer the hours as they want though, and additional hours do need to be paid for.

When my kids were little it was the tax credits system so if you were entitled to help you could get upto 90% of childcare paid. This was at what ever rate the nursery/childminder chose to charge. It was means tested. It was a fairer system for the nurseries as they were properly paid , the only down side was it was paid to parents so some parents would spend it and plead poverty (I worked in childcare at tge time)

It's the marketing of it as "free" that's the problem. It was never free, and a lot of people don't seem to have picked up on that.

My bill has halved; because DS only goes two days a week, so most of his is now funded - but new starters now pay £12 a day more, and there's a funded charge of £10 per day when you use free hours. If I add an extra day, my fees shoot up to higher than they were before.

Although it has to be working for people, because nursery waiting lists have gone mad. We looked at an alternative nursery yesterday, and they offered us a start date of September 2026. He'll be in school then! It's just not free. It's cheaper.

When we were viewing nurseries last year, one charged £54 and said they wouldn't be able to offer much of a reduction with TFC. One was £85. One was £92. I suppose the higher profit margins ones have more space to play, although standards there have dropped as a result of the new free hours, that's been really clear.

@Autienotnaughtie I guess that's the same as UC, though - up to 85% back, if you're eligible. Just a lot fewer people are than were on TCs.

Mine is free. The nursery is only open term time 9-3.30 but within that you can whatever combinations of full or half days or 30 minute lunch times you want, up to the 15 or 30 hours. You have to provide a packed lunch.

The problem is 8-6 52 week nurseries don't fit the pattern very well. That would be 2600 hours childcare whereas the 15 free hours only adds up to 555 hours. So it would only ever be a 20% reduction. Plus of course it doesn't cover food and nappies. Most 8-6 nurseries provide 3 meals a day plus snacks. They need to run a kitchen to do that which costs money. A child can't really eat 3 meals a day of packed lunch 5 days a week.
Children in a 9-3.30 nursery eat their breakfast and tea at home so.it doesn't matter if lunch is a sandwich and bag of party rings every day. Or if they go to breakfast and after-school club it ends up costing much the same as a 8-6 nursery due to the extra hours and food.

People are expecting too much from the state here. Once the child is school age you will have to pay for breakfast and tea and wrap around care and holiday care if you use them so why should it be free for pre school age children?

They've made it so only the following classes can have afford to have children:

>the very wealthy
>benefit users

Nothing for those in between.