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/

It was never going to be free unless u want unqualified 16 year old looking after yr children as the minimum wage has increased so nursery overheads have increased.

We deliver the funded hours free but ask for £1 for a cooked lunch. So stretched hrs are 12 or 22 term timers 15 or 30 deducted from the bill. Eg 3 days a week all year round £600 per month, but drops to £160 per month with 30 hrs funding stretched.

From Jan 1st our private fees will have to go up to £6 per hour. We charge £1 a day for nappies and wipes and provide snacks free. We're in s Yorkshire. I'm dreading it, I know parents won't be happy but hopefully they'll understand.

By adding NI increases and increases to the NMW?….thank god for labour

I wish we were near you!

It could have been. Ireland manages perfectly well to give a totally free ecce year and subsidide childcare for a large number of parent.

Me too, it's a really lovely nursery ha!

we've been very lucky, though. We really need to pay staff more and re invest in some more resources so hopefully the fee increase will be accepted. In more deprived areas like ours, the high fees just wouldn't wash and there's no way we could charge the families accessing the 2 year old hours for non working families. (Though we do quietly provide them lunch more often than not because they wouldn't eat otherwise.)

nurseries with big corporations owning them is not the way to go to get the best Early Years experiences for our children. I sincerely hope the finding rates are increased enough to show staff they're appreciated and to allow us to be sustainable.

Our private nursery seems very rare but delivers the funded hours free. My DC attends 20 hours (2 days) a week and I pay nothing at all including for food. We have stretched the 30 hours across the year, so get 22 hours. She actually attends school based nursery as well and we use the two hours remaining a week for there, and then pay the remaining hours to school.

We've been customers of this nursery for 9 years and it's always been like this. They did try to introduce top ups a few years ago but faced a big backlash and went back on the idea which I was so surprised about because top ups are so common, thought they would just push through. Even in the area it seems rare, I have no idea how they do it.

Sorry, I'm not expressing myself very well today! I just think we should have a household limit, not a per person limit, for both child benefit and funded childcare. I wasn't specifying what that limit should be.

Try a childminder. I'm a childminder and don't charge anything extra for funded under 3s except classes or outings.

We are on a waiting list - a childminder would be our first choice.

Oh it is directed at the politicians, not the nursery staff. Absolutely.

It's a choice isn't it. The funded hours help. As a couple you have to decide if its worth you working or not. Personally I'd work as it's so much harder to get back into it the longer you have out of work.

My oldest is 16, the hours weren't properly free even when she was at nursery. Why did you think they would be? Has always been well publicised thst they are funded at well below actual costs.

Survey people didn't just get dazzled by the word 'free' and just run with that without looking into it properly first?

Nurseries would likely have to close if they didn't charge these extras. What other private business essentially has their rates 'capped' by the government? It's a scandal to be honest.

Nursery fees have always been expensive but the system of funded hours worked very well when my older children were small (old Labour government)

Then the Tories came in and started not funding the subsidised hours properly so that if staff were paid £11 an hour, the government would pay only £4 an hour of that. But the nursery would still have to honour these 'free' funded hours and make sure they were advertised as free. And pay their staff properly.

The upshot of this has been that some placements now offer two-tier care where some of the children get to do Forrest school, for example and others don't.

When children became the victims of this crap at a time so important in their lives, it should make all of us ashamed that this is what people repeatedly voted for.

The formative years, above all others are the one time that it's possible to create a more level playing field. The Tories do not support social mobility - the idea that they do is a myth.

A lot of nurseries already do this for the original 30 hours you get at 3. Paying for meals on top and having to pay for the care full price in school holiday times. It's never been "free" as such.

Totally agree that the government needs to explain properly what they mean by ‘free’. My children were in nursery back when this whole thing very first started. We used to pay around 2k per month. We salary sacrificed from my husband’s salary before it was a thing, as the nursery was linked to his workplace. I didn’t earn 2k per month then, and we had to stick it out because I knew in my gut that if I dropped out of work, I wouldn’t be so lucky to get back in with the type of job I had. The free hours came in and we dropped to around £700 per month which was a huge benefit… but not ‘free’. Luckily it paid off in the end on two fronts: the children got great early years education and I maintained and developed my career and now earn a much higher salary. I’m lucky that I was in a career with some prospects for promotion, in an organisation with a supportive culture. Not everyone has that.

Exempt from NI I could agree with. Exempt from NMW... not so much. These are important jobs. Staff should be on more than NMW (but are not, always). They certainly shouldn't be on less.

Yes, I have no problem with NMW going up - staff should be paid better. It's the NI that is more the issue. It's not even the fees increasing I'm worried about, it's the nursery either opting out of the 'free' hours altogether or making them so restrictive that they can't be used by working parents (only able to use a couple of hours each morning etc) that scares me.

Op could you explain what the changes are usually tele is behind a pay wall?. U

Everything the government gives us for ‘free’ has to be paid for by us one way or another. They just take an administrative cut along the way.

The free hours are still a discount and your bill is further reduced with the tax free childcare account.

I don't see why people still expect it to be totally free.

The government forces nurseries to advertise the hours as 'free'.

My issue is first with the politicians eg Jeremy Hunt smugly talking in an aren't I wonderful self congratulatory way about all the "FREE HOURS" he's introducing, isn't it great, aren't they wonderful for working parents, well done me.

And my other issue is the way the scheme is set up, nurseries are technically banned from charging top up fees, and any charges for extras (food etc) have to be optional - parents must be allowed to send in their own and have that charge removed. But as more and more children get more free hours, nurseries that abide by these rules get more and more squeezed because they have fewer and fewer hours they can actually charge for. A scheme designed to help parents with childcare should not result in the closure of childcare providers. That is clearly a failing policy.