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).

Not the first thing to be introduced over the last few years where the provider is underfunded. I assume there are not many nurseries run by Tory donors.

Pre-election gimmick instead of proper funding and the age reduction being phased in.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rishi-sunak-koru-kids-akshata-murty-b2398515.html

Mrs Sunak has shares in a few.

I think a lot of women (and men) would prefer to stay at home but they have a mortgage that needs two wages to pay for.
If they sort the housing market, then these funded places may not be needed by many.

I was a childminder. I was bloody good at it! Got outstandings in all areas.

Then they had us writing big sets of policies and procedures, risk assessments. Then it was we need to do qualifications in childcare, even though I had been doing it for years. The amount of paperwork increased.

Don't get me started on OFSTED inspections, meetings, regular trainings.

It became more about paperwork than childcare and the stress forced me to quit.

In my mum's day, it was a private arrangement between her and another mother and fees were all relative to the setting, way more affordable because there was no beurocracy and stress.

The amount of hoops you have to jump through now is what is making childcare so expensive. Mothers helping mothers was the best way, in my opinion. Home from home.

I am unconvinced many private nurseries are struggling financially- the few round here seem to been creating a healthy profit

We had the same issue when we got 30 'free' hours. DS went for 3 full days (30hrs in total), but the free hours were limited to 6hrs per day so we had to pay for the other, along with food and other additions. In reality we saved very little.
I get it from the nursery point of view, but it's a very misleading message from the government.

My (almost) 3 year old goes for 3 half days a week, they charge £17 for consumables and our bill has gone down by about £200, which is a decent saving. The huge disparity between private nurseries is quite shocking though!

It's funded not free. Nurseries are closing as they can't afford to keep open on what the government gives them for `free' hours.

Yes, it's ridiculous

So detrimental to women and children too

I don't get why anyone is shocked did you not read what the actual nurseries etc. have been saying all along?
Funding is for 38 weeks a year and after the admin costs taken by LAs they are paid around 50 to 60% of their usual fees. Nurseries and settings have been closing at the fastest rate ever costs are increasing including minimum wage ......have you lobbied the government to pay a realistic rate?

The government. The UK is the worst in Europe.

It’s an absolute racket.

You are paying out what for many is their total take-home pay. That is quite a ridiculous amount but 'free' childcare is not about you saving money but for keeping women with children in the workforce (keeps wages down) and making money out of childcare (commodifying child care). I would see this 'free' childcare as more equitable if it was actuall cash paid to the mother (or other carer) to use towards the childcare they wanted, whether by staying at home with the child, paying grandparents or family, or using a nursery. This won't happen in the UK since the entire package is geared to getting women out to work as soon as possible after birth and making money for the childcare industry. Mothers staying at home or using their parents as carers won't do that. Other countries e.g. Sweden, Finland, count rearing children and caring for them as part of the GDP, which it is, for society can neither function nor grow without people rearing children.

Some of the comments on here are so valid. The cost of UK childcare is the sole reason we’re debating not having another child right now.

Same here.

I'll be spending £4,000 a month if I have another.

Just...obscene.

Same here. Our DS came along unexpectedly after we’d decided not to have children. It’s bittersweet as from the moment he was born we both said we’d changed our minds and wanted more… and then we sent him to nursery. Now we can’t afford another child. And if we wait until he’s in school and so are paying a lot less in childcare, we aren’t sure we can then put ourselves all the way through it again financially when we’ve finally come out the other side.

I feel the same about my DS current nursery have been using them since he was 9months old. Just turned 3 and moving him to a term time only pre school and arranging working pattern to be part year to reduce costs. And to top it off in the new tax year they are increasing prices!

I suppose it depends on where you live.

My daughter’s 15 hours kick in after the Easter Hols, she’s currently with a Childminder, the cost has gone from £40/day to £5 so can’t complain at all.

Look at it this way. You produce a product that costs you £5.00 to make without a profit. That’s all the costs involved in getting that product ready to sell. Ideally, you’ll sell it for a profit. There is a huge demand for this product.

Imagine now that the government comes along and tells you that you can only sell it for £4.00. You will lose £1.00 per product, despite there being a demand, and the demand makes it worse because you lose £1.00 many times over.

That is the reality over ‘funded’ hours of childcare. It will cost the nursery, preschool or childminder - to keep it simple here and this is not actually the amount as it varies from local authority to local authority- £5.00 to have your child in their care for 1 hour. That’s covering their costs. The government says ‘oh no, have these FREE hours’ but only pays the childcare provider £4.00 per hour. So over a week they lose £30 per child. Times by lots of children.

People want qualified, responsible and trained staff to look after their children, in a nice environment and with lovely toys, activities and facilities. It comes at a cost. Even the regular mandatory first aid and safe training, let alone rates, electricity, water, food etc. The if you have 20 kids costing you, the provider, £30 a week, that’s £600 you are short in just one week. It’s not the provider’s fault - it’s the government for promising what it can’t deliver. At least not without losing standards or childcare facilities themselves.

Trust me you arent as annoyed as the childless who are paying for your childcare

I remember when mine went to nursery, we paid for extra hours rather than having the cost reduced with funding. So we paid for some extra sessions. I think we did five mornings for free and paid for two afternoons. No expectations to do anything more than your free hours.

Now nurseries need full timers because they don't get enough funding to run and have to overcharge for the non-free hours and these extras.

IMO, receiving anything is better than nothing, when my DS was young my entire monthly wage paid for the childcare cover for the 6 week summer holidays. There were no childcare benefits, working tax credits etc. So although you might think are your vouchers worth it, yes they are.

IMO, receiving anything is better than nothing

These government childcare plans are resulting in many settings closing completely, preventing people from actually getting a place in the first place.

That isn’t better than nothing.

My nursery fees were higher than my mortgage when the eldest was little. If I was on benefits I’d be laughing but you get punished for working and get hit at every angle. Not worth working at all. Think I had £130 left of my wages every month. Don’t know how we did it as DH wasn’t in a good job at the time and it was all hands on deck.

Pre covid it really helped, food was included, rates were fair, so the extra funding went a long way. So different now, apologetic messages about rise in fees, adding on meals etc, same as everywhere. The free hours do still help though, better than not having them, but I get your point. Xx