To think that what's happening to 'free' childcare hours is just another kick in the teeth?

[SerendipitySunshine]

For all of us who have been looking forward to these supposed 30 'free' hours from September (or currently with 15) it's just another kick in the teeth for working parents? I'm dreading what our nursery will do. Yes, I'm grateful to have anything (and I know others didn't) but this is not what was promised.

www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/national/uk-today/24724272.free-childcare-hours-risk-nurseries-add-top-fees/

There are still lots of childminders who don't charge top ups.

Well they can't once the 9 month olds are on 30 free hours - most places probably don't have that many babies younger than that.

So it won't be expensive baby hours to fund older children, it will be expensive hours in excess of the funding. 30 hours stretched over 52 weeks is only 22 hours a week.

When my older child had the 3-year-old funding it covered the hours they did. We just paid for lunch. Stupidly I thought this would be the same.

We secured our nursery place in March 2024 for January 2025 because of the announcement of the “free hours”. We knew it was term time and subsidised rather than actually free but even on visiting the nursery they were really good to make that clear, and give us a sheet with all the info. Expecting the fees to change in April in line with the financial year and the date they changed their fees last year. But sadly it was never going to be free.

18 hours a week, including 11 hours funded is still £87 a week for us.

Tbh it’s much better than when we paid full price right? A full week of extra fees cost us £300 ish which is tons better than before

I'd say you're in the minority @KnittyNell based on my experience locally and reading posts on here by other CMs. I'm not still a childminder but when I stopped 3 years ago the funded rate was around £2ph LESS than standard rate so all childcare providers charges some sort of top-up. I gather the gap has widened even more now with fewer providers charging ever higher rates and LA funding is c. £5ph and hourly rate is £7,50-£8ph. Literally no incentive to take on a funded child so many just don't bother.

This was put in place by the previous government. Nurseries have been saying for months that it won’t work as they said it would.

Childcare funding has been around a lot longer than you think!

I recall that the nursery funding began in the late 1990s with the introduction of Nursery Vouchers, which were valued at £5 each. They were actual paper vouchers originally, which parents could use to pay for early years education for children aged 4 and rising 4. Over the next couple of years it was gradually rolled out to 3-year-olds as well. It was later renamed the Nursery Grant and entitled children to 12.5 hours a week of nursery education.

In about 2003 or 2004 the government changed the name of the scheme again to Early Years Free Education, then it later became the Early Years Free Entitlement and increased to 15 hours. The 30 hours offer is a recent addition.

Strange that, isn't it? Mine purely coincidentally went up by exactly the percentage increase in tax credit childcare allowances. Plus extra if there was a rise in the income parents would receive.

It's always happened this way. Never met a poor nursery owner and certainly not whilst I was doing their payrolls and bookkeeping.

Why did the Tories say it was free hours when it clearly was not going to be enough. Labour yet again having to try and sort out out the mess the Tories left things in.

Just be grateful that you don’t live in Scotland. We only get 30 funded hours starting the term after the child turns 3, my child is born in March and thanks to Scottish term times won’t be eligible for the funding until late August.

The funding in Scotland is levied though local councils, so you can’t go to a nursery that’s different from your local council area. A nightmare for me as my house is on a road that’s the boundary between two council areas, it’s a 30 min drive on the opposite direction from my work to the nearest local council nursery offering full time care.

And then on top of that, the council retains half the funding so that for each ‘funded’ hour the nursery deducts the amount they have actually received from the council and you pay for the rest.

My nursery for my one year old is £90 a day, so around £1,845 a month.

Plus on top of the we pay higher income taxes!

I’m expecting fees to soar even more thanks to the latest budget, I have applied for other nurseries even further away but they won’t even accept my application as they are so over subscribed.

Thank you Labour and the SNP!

They've always been "funded" hours.

You got lucky.

It was always utter bollocks I’m afraid and clearly unworkable. I just don’t think it’s ever been viable to provide great care ( especially in expensive areas) within the subsidy amount. My nursery was always over ratio and I was happy to pay a top-up for that. My nursery gave the children decent food. I was still paying loads even with ‘free’ hours. They have never been fully free to the majority of people using nurseries. Even the pre school attached to the local school charges top ups.

It was then obvious that the changes to NI and minimum wage were going to hit organisations like nurseries, care homes, shops etc really hard.

I'm amazed that people are so surprised when Early Years has been warning about the so-called "free" 30 hours for years!!! How do parents still think it's the settings at fault? Why do they blame the current Government?

Jeremy Hunt knew perfectly well his proposals to extend it were unaffordable, that's why he introduced them - didn't you see his smirk when they were announced? He knew he'd never have to implement it and so he planted a ticking bomb for the next Government.

Why don't people listen? It's been said so often that the "free" hours were not - could not - be free and were underfunded.

Now the funding is a means for putting smaller providers out of business, allowing the bigger shareholder chains to receive money from the taxpayer, and eventually raise their prices as they like because there'll be no competition.

The best thing the current Government can do is to scrap it and start again with the original Early Years plans. More providers will make childcare more affordable, but funding and Ofsted are driving them out.

Yes, I realise I was pretty naive to think it would work out. Just dreading nursery stopping doing the funded hours or changing them so we can't use them to cover working hours.

The early years sector have been warning about this for years. ‘Free’ childcare is right up there with ‘free’ dental care and soon to be joined by ‘’free’ breakfast clubs in your child’s school.

Inadequately funded services so despite the fact you might be ‘eligible’ for something free, if you can’t find anyone to offer you them, you’ll have to pay!

The Conservative government were told by LA’s and providers that this would not work. The hourly rate from government was never enough.

It was put in place regardless. Headline grabbing, vote winning ( if you believe everything the Conservative government said). Misleading at best.

Well that's it. DH always worked full time so his became the bigger salary by a good distance. Being able to afford childcare was the thing that got me back to work, and if we can't afford it anymore it'll be my career that suffers (again!). It just feels like something that penalises the lower earning parent.

As others have said, it was never going to work.
With getting more kids in, more staff are needed also. And not just anyone who wants to have a pop at it but legally, they need the required level 3's in each room. These qualified staff are leaving in their droves because of the way they are treated, the long hours and the low pay.

I agree. I also think the 100,000 cap based on one salary massively disincentivises the lower earning partner from working. But that's a whole other argument!

However unless you are literally losing money from working there are still lots of benefits financially and career progression wise.

My nursery fees are only going up £25 per month in January (we pay for 4 days a week) and the fees for the 30 hrs funded children (which we qualify for in April) have ever so slightly reduced.

But even if they’d put the fees up more, which is what we’d expected, we would still be saving money by moving from 15 hrs to 30 hrs subsidised.

Nurseries are struggling at the moment, your anger should be directed at the government.

This shouldn’t be a massive surprise, it was never a sustainable plan from the government. Where did they think the nurseries were going to find the money to fill the shortfall? Our bill for our youngest has dropped from £230 per month for 1 day per week to £50 per month so I can’t complain but I’m totally expecting this to skyrocket in April when they review their current charges.

Yes, I agree the £100,000 one parent threshold was a mistake. It should be a household total. So should child benefit IMO.

@SerendipitySunshine £100k household income before childcare cut off would leave a lot of parents in the lurch, particularly if they had two children.

Given the plummeting birth rate, there should be more help for families rather than less.