Childcare Commission - How should nannies and parents with nannies respond?

[nannynick]

Childcare Commission Call for Evidence - Closing Date 31 August 2012

Having had a quick look at this it does not seem to be asking about deregulation of childcare. I wonder if that is deliberate.

Theme 1: Ways to encourage the provision of wrap around and holiday childcare for children of school age

Q1. What wrap around and holiday provision do parents need that
they are not currently easily able to access?
Q2. What barriers exist that make it more difficult to provide high
quality and affordable wrap around and holiday care for children,
particularly those aged five and over? How can these be overcome?

Q3. What are the main barriers to parents setting up or getting
involved in running before and after-school activities and holiday
schemes? How might these be addressed?
Q4. What role can schools play to help parents access the before and
after-school and holiday provision they need?

Theme 2: Identifying any regulation that burdens childcare
providers unnecessarily because it is not needed for reasons of
quality or safety
Q5. What early education, childcare or other regulation unnecessarily
gets in the way of the delivery of flexible, affordable, safe and high
quality provision, or its expansion?
Q6. How could existing regulation be improved?
Q7. Which aspects of requirements for providers do parents consider
worthwhile? Or unnecessary?
Q8. Are there any aspects of regulation which, in your view, make
childcare more costly that it need be? Please explain your answer.

Theme 3: How childcare supports families to move into
sustained employment and out of poverty
Q9. What are the main issues parents face when making decisions about work, either entering work, or increasing their hours, in relation
to childcare? Do some families face particular challenges, such as
low or middle-income families, or families with disabled children?

Q10. When are the key transition or tipping points, and what are the
main issues at those times?

Q11. What do employers do well and what further role could
employers play in supporting parents with their childcare needs?

Q12. How do parents access information and support relating to
childcare, from local authorities or elsewhere? How could information
or support services be improved?
Q13. How effectively is existing government support to help parents
participate in work being delivered?

As a nanny, I provide wrap around care, as I provide before and after school care.

Parents employing a nanny currently pay that nanny from their taxed income. What if it were possible to pay for childcare from the pre-taxed income? Get rid of Childcare Vouchers, get rid of childcare element of WTC, and instead make the childcare payments deductible from salary before calculating employee income tax and NI. Yeah I know, Government will never agree to that, but if enough people tell the Childcare Commission they want that... would Government have to consider it?

Any ideas on how to go about answering the commisons questions, from the viewpoint of a nanny or parent who employs a nanny?

Theme 2 is all about deregulation. It doesn't say "we are proposing to change X, Y and Z, what do you think?" because it is a call for evidence to be recognised in forming proposals, not the proposals themselves which will need to be consulted on later.

So if you support the current regulatory regime for home childcarers, provide a reasoned answer to Q.7.

I'm afraid that a blanket tax allowance for childcare costs would be seen as disproportionately benefiting higher earning families, whereas the government's aim as illustrated by Theme 3 is to target assistance at low and no income families.

Bump for the evening crowd.

When responding to the commission, do we need to find answers to all the questions?

Question 2 is about 'reducing the burden' of regulation
which burdens would you like reduced and then it leads to say 'would it mean you would charge less' ?

The answer from many will be NO...there are a huge amount of burdens that are unnecessary and those are the terms and conditions imposed on providers to comply with all sorts on top of what DfE and Ofsted require (local authorities for a start)...hope people will list those

Neither EYFS or Ofsted, who visit every 4 years, are a burden

Nannynick many provide wrap around care, in fact c/ms have done so for 35 years .....
the problems it is not well advertised...

Does anyone think that childcare is expensive?
You will be surprised how many people think not...

"When responding to the commission, do we need to find answers to all the questions?"

Absolutely not. In fact if your response contains irrelevant/generic answers to a number of questions it may mean the one or two main points you want to get across are missed.

"Does anyone think that childcare is expensive?"

Whether it is expensive or not is irrelevant, and it does childminders no good in this context to justify the amount they charge.

The point is whether it is AFFORDABLE for the parents, and I'm afraid that there is a huge amount of evidence that in many cases it is not affordable (viz. campaigns by the Daycare Trust, Save the Children etc.) so I don't think there is much point trying to say that it is.

So use the questions as a sort of guide to the theme but write what I feel is the important things, is that the way to do it.

Will have to hunt the childminder forum, expect someone on there may have done an example from a childminder viewpoint which I could adapt.

There are a couple of guides around on the forum Nannynick :)

"So use the questions as a sort of guide to the theme but write what I feel is the important things, is that the way to do it."

Not really, I'd say that you should only write what you feel is important if it is relevant to the question you are answering. If there is anything that you want to get across that is not covered by the questions the final "any other comments you would like to make" question is the place to put it (or if your comment is about the process itself e.g. the timescale of only 6 weeks over the summer holidays rather than the recommended 12 weeks the "Please let us have your views on responding to this call for evidence" question).

It might help to look at the analysis of responses to another call for evidence such as the Nutbrown Review to get an idea of how what you say is going to be reflected in the reports read by those who will formulate any proposals.

You say childcare is expensive (many are arguing it is not)...but it has to be affordable..Affordable to whom?
Providers have families and mortgages too and many make a small profit

There is a need to find a balance which many countries like Sweden and Denmark seem to have found and we have not...there it is heavily subsided by the govt while here providers subside the Free Entitlement and to recoup their losses the fees outside of the FE have shot up over the last two years

Many providers have also graduated and achieved EYPS...what is a fair hourly fee in return for professionalism, knowledge and high quality?

What does Mr Anchovy feel is a reasonable fee for a c/m when some charge only £3.50 per hour, for 10hour+ days and huge amounts of time outside opening hours to get through regulation requirements?

"Affordable to whom?"

Specifically "families moving into sustained employment and out of poverty" - it's in the question.

The consultation is also concerned as to whether affordability can be improved generally by identifying and reducing regulatory burdens that increase cost, so if a childminder spends "huge amounts of time outside opening hours to get through regulation requirements", then would reducing those requirements enable the childminder to spend that time looking after children instead? Or would changes to ratios/space requirements/ enable the childminder to look after more children - or would this have an unacceptable impact on quality or safety? Answers to all of these questions are directly relevant to the CfE.

I have not said that chidcare is expensive, and I am not going to express any opinion on what is a reasonable fee for a childminder.

I'll say it: Childcare is expensive. Yes it is!

Is it affordable? Hmmm.... Depends who is paying and what they have left I suppose. I personally would like to live in a society wher normal people with normal jobs could go work, pay for the childcare, the rent/mortgage, buy the food, and still have few pennies left over at the end of the month. But I don't think we are there.

What would be helpful - but won't be considered - is to let working parents pay for ALL of their childcare out of their pre tax earnings.

C/ms spend own time doing regulation paperwork such as evening and weekends...how does this
'enable the childminder to spend that time looking after children instead?' You want them to look after children evenings and weekends? very unclear

So fees must be affordable to parents but providers get paid below minimum wage? Do not follow this

Burdens that need reducing are those imposed by LAs, who are not regulatory bodies and organizations who seem to churn out Terms and Conditions every other day just to tick their target boxes

Some cms don't like doing this paperwork on their own time.

No one is (legally) paid below minimum wage.

It is the tax burden that is a problem. (and unnecessary regulation that doesn't add value is probably a factor)

I wish we could discuss which parts of regulation are a burden as asked in Theme 2..it may help

For me there is no need to be so stricly registered for children once they are in full time education as long as safeguarding remains a priority (EYFS 2012 has removed need for lots of info sharing with schools) so I will mention this in my response... 5-8 year olds need less of our administrative time
Will it lower the cost of childcare? ...not sure...what would you like to see reduced as a burden?