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).

I'm a childminder in the South East and for two children I would charge

£65 per day (Inc food and nappies)
No sibling discount though.

3 days funded during term time for DD (1.5 days for DS from September)

Full price in hols as I don't stretch funding but works out the same annually.

You can also use tax free childcare with childminders.

Term time weeks = 65x5 = 325 for both (38 weeks) and again less from September due to baby ds funding

Holiday weeks = 65x 8 = 520 for both (14 weeks less if I'm on holiday)

I appreciate there are pros and cons of each type of childcare provider, but it's something to consider for people starting out.

It shouldn't be possible to be worse off by earning more.

Particularly not to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds.

We should be encouraging higher earners to be at work (and paying lots of tax!), not encouraging them to cut down their hours.

Particularly Doctors, given the shortage of them and length of waiting lists.

Yes childcare costs are crazy for a full time place.
And yes there are settings where it is completely free - both mine attended school based nurseries from 3 where it was completly free, we just sent a packed lunch. It was only school hours though, which I get doesn't work for everyone

The frustrating thing on this thread is the comments that this childcare policy is 'anti women', making us into victims. But its a choice - I know at least 4 couples where the mum is the higher earner, and it was the Dad who stopped work/went part time to support with childcare. I earnt much more than my husband until recently. It's a choice each couple makes, about how they wish to make childcare work for their family. It could be the mum who stops work for childcare, or it could be the Dad. Or they could both reduce hours/work compressed hours. Or neither reduce hours and both stay full time and share childcare costs.

If a man always expects that out of the 2 of them, their wife has to be the one to stay home for childcare, then thats a husband/partner problem, not a funding problem.

Our nursery charges £9 for consumables that includes breakfast, lunch and high tea and extra curricular activities. They allow parents not to pay if they provide all meals but will ask to pay for extra curricular which I agree with as this is often external companies. Quite happy with how it’s reduced our bills. I’d say it’s nursery dependent and would be interested to know if these higher consumables are from independent nurseries or larger chains? Ours is a very small 3 nursery chain.

Well absolutely every 'class' of person I know has children, I doubt that will change.

There 3-4 year funding rate is very poor but the others are pretty good. Add a £10 a day consumable charge and everyone could be happy

I wouldn’t say encouraging higher earners is necessarily the way forward, we’ce very much devalued lower income workers. Who would society rather works, a teacher or an investment banker? As for the nhs theres also a shortage of nurses- they may not pay as much tax but are still valuable. Higher earners pay more and receive less help, this isn’t new and what should determine a fair society.

It IS shit, but to put it in perspective, I live abroad where school doesn’t start until age 5, and there is no starting a term after they turn 5 or whatever, so DC will be almost 6 and we are paying $2500/month for preschool for a 5 year old, food not included at all AND we were lucky to get a place at all. We got on wait lists for daycare when I was 3 months pregnant and got off them when DC was 2… so we were paying for a nannyshare to the tune of almost $5k/month once taxes etc were all in. There is no government funding.

It really irked when my kids were in nursery.

Dont get me wrong I was saving a fair bit but I felt like the nursery were taking the mick.

At the time, the nursery standard charge was £38 a day all food included.

When the 30 hours started in Wales, the nursery were being paid £4.50 an hour by the local authority. They were open for 10 hours so they were receiving £45 a day for my child.

The nursery were also then charging me for food which was about £5 per meal. He wasn’t there for breakfast as he was in school nursery. So I was paying £10 a day for food.

So if I was paying myself, I’d have been paying them £38 food included. But when the 30 hours started, they were receiving £45 a day and charging for food on top, so they were receiving £55 a day.

I was grateful that I only had to pay £10 per day but it irked.

The funding the government are giving for two year olds is actually much more than it is for three year olds. My daughter is with a childminder and the free hours are going to be fully free while she is 2, then when she hits 3 there will need to be a top-up. Worth knowing if you are dealing with private nurseries that they are actually getting a lot more for the 2 year olds than the 3 year olds, so it should knock more off your bill. Also worth knowing is that council-run nurseries are WAY cheaper. We have two council-run nurseries in my London borough where the free hours are completely free - no top up. Only thing you have to pay for is lunch which is £3 a day.

It isn't one or the other you know.

By taxing people at rates of >100% causing them to cut their hours etc, this doe not improve the lot of the teacher. Nor doe sit devalue their contribution to society.

Is it 'fair' for a parent of two preschoolers to lose £15,000 of post-tax income for earning £1 over £100k? Can you explain:

• Why it is fair, when someone earning £99,999 gets an extra £15,000?
• Why is it rational, given it incentivise that person to work less and so pay less tax - or, take tax avoidance strategies

But you will always have people on the line, of falling just outside a benefit- child benefit has exactly the same issue.
Facts are childcare is a horrible subject and the hardest place to be as a parent is lacking on choice- ie. Working because you have to or staying at home because you have to. An 100k worker is less likely to be restricted in choice based on their income.

By taxing people at rates of >100% causing them to cut their hours etc, this doe not improve the lot of the teacher no but taking government help and directing it at higher income earners vs lower income workers hardly makes sense.

Also should add that as PPs have pointed out costs really depend on your provider - I use a childminder and she charges £65 a day including food and nappies (in London). I do appreciate it can be incredibly hard to find a childminder though. The council-run (often school-based) nurseries are also cheap in comparison to private nurseries though, and there are always places at those without long waiting lists, at least in my London borough there are anyway. Yes it's term-time only and school hours but lots of them offer wraparound hours and have holiday clubs you can use which are about £30 a day. So there are much more affordable options.

Similar experience to many previous posters for us. Our private nursery was £70 a day for under 2s when my child started in 2021. That seemed so expensive to me at the time - yet less than three years later it's now £90 a day for that age range (and the 3-4yr olds now cost more than the babies did back then). The hourly supplement for funded hours has increased from £1.50 to £2.70. This is typical for all the private nurseries in our area. So the true saving of the Government's new scheme is at best probably minimal for the many families who have no option but to use private nurseries. The state pre-schools in our area are excellent, don't have hourly supplements and children can attend 3 days a week for free (parents have to provide food) - that's all great but they close by 5-5.30pm and are term-time only. Just not an option for many families. It seems a very two tier situation.

This is absolutely true. 2 year old funding rates are higher than 3 year old rates.

However, in a nursery setting children are grouped according to age. 2 year olds are supported at a ratio of 1:4.

3 year old ratios are 1:8 (or 1:13 if the nursery is led by a qualified teacher). Therefore in a nursery setting they need significantly more staffing for 2 year old provisions.

Our local nurseries have huge waiting lists for 2 year old spaces as there simply aren't enough qualified staff available.

Actually, if you're working full time, you should get 20% tax back on some of your fees.

But, you're right. £1900 is unaffordable. Women (it's generally women) can't afford to work with those prices.

My son is starting soon and only using free hours (10 hours a week). We will be paying the cost for nappies etc only, which looks to be £10 a month according to our invoice.

Why does there need to be a cut off to the provision? We provide universal schooling, healthcare etc - why not childcare?

You are failing to address the outcome of the cliff edge

• A parent of two children might lose £15k+ of post-tax income a year. This is £40k before tax at that level.
• This means people work less or stuff money into pensions, meaning less tax take

No one is arguing to 'take money from lower earners and give it to higher earners', they are arguing that higher earners should be eligible for access to childcare support too given then high costs of childcare, and the fact they pay huge amount of tax to fund it.

And - the point at which it is applied meaning a 60% tax rate plus cliff edge loss of benefits means a crazy tax rate. Would you take the promotion if you knew it meant less money in your pocket each month?

At £140k you might have no more take home pay than at £99k - how can you possibly rationalise that as a sensible policy?

Two children in nursery would cost 80% of a £100k salary in my borough - it's not wild riches if you are paying nursery fees.

@MidnightPatrol no what I want is for the nursery to explain to me what £20 a day covers. Instead of being told to fuck off. They've got you over a barrel and some childcare providers use this as an excuse to rinse parents who have no other option. Interestingly the companies earnings are online and the owners are doing very nicely to say the least.

Hi. 5k seems a bit low for years ago. I live in a poor area with lower costs and my day care bill even then was £35 per day for my now 16 year old.

You're wasting your time. This issue comes up again and again on MN but most people prefer to stick their fingers in their ears and completely miss the points you are making.

As I always say in these discussions, I have absolutely no skin in this game as our household income is around £50k and will never go anywhere near £100k+. Nevertheless I still fully support everything you've said. The benefits and taxation systems in this country are totally broken and don't serve any of us well. Thank you for your hard work as an NHS doctor, some of us really appreciate it. That being said, if I was on a cliff edge tax/benefit point, I'd absolutely reduce my hours personally, I think most people (women?) would, it's the rational decision to make.

@Notreat I completely understand that. But it's the aggression from the nursery. They've put their prices up 34% and when you have the sheer gall to ask what that is for, we're told to piss off and find somewhere else. It's a shambles and there are some nurseries who completely abuse the situation.

To answer backwards- most people don’t have two children in nursery at the same time due to these costs.

I don’t necessarily agree with the tax thresholds but a bigger issue for me is the shitty wages in this country.

would I take a promotion for less money- nope. I’ve had to do the sums on losing child benefit and moving jobs myself twice.

Genuine question where does it end with childcare- should a government fully fund from birth- childcare in the school holidays? It’s like the free university argument, we fund free primary and secondary school places why not uni?! Because someone has to pay for it.

Wel the government have a duty to ensure it is affordable for families to, you know, keep working and society functioning. They don't seem to care about at this at the moment.

Its dependant on nursery. Ours apply the hours and charge £1.50 per funded hour used, so means we'll be paying about £100 a month instead of £600. We purposely chose a nursery over amother one that was closer that applies the funded hours simply for this reason