Will 30 hours free childcare help you?

[agnesrose86]

Is it just me or is the 30 hours of free childcare for 3 and 4 year olds that the new government is proposing not that helpful? I have a 5 and 3 year old and a baby. I will use the free 15 hours in September so my ds gets to see his friends but in terms of childcare enabling me to work, I will still have to pay a nanny/childminder. It would be so much better if the 30 hours could be used to pay an ofsted registered nanny or the 15 hours was extended to include all 2 year olds. Just wondering if anyone else agrees or that's just my situation?

Outraged, you make the mistake of assuming that everyone living in an expensive area owns their own expensive house. They don't.

Someone living in a council or HA house or renting in an undesirable estate will already be struggling with higher prices and little money. They'll have access to fewer facilities from the LA thanks to their richer neighbours voting for money-saving councils.

And you want to reduce their childcare entitlement, too? Childcare that is often more expensive in these areas?

No, I don't think that's fair at all.

People on a low income get help from other areas, tax credits etc.

I don't think there is a single system that will be entirely fair for everyone, but I do think vouchers would be a fairer and more workable scheme overall.

(I don't assume that everyone owns their own house btw. The 'less house for your money' applies to renters too. You can rent a mansion up north for the price of a bedsit in London!!)

I can see you're very keen on your proposal, but the issue of fairness does need to be addressed if it's to be adopted.

It's precisely because of this that the free entitlement was set in hours, not in monetary terms - so that everyone had those free hours and poorer people were not penalised according to where they lived.

Don't worry Tanith. George Osborne has literally never asked me for my advice on this so I don't think we need to worry about my proposal being adopted (although tbf I don't thing George Osborne is overly concerned with fairness).

They tried the entitlement being set in hours. It doesn't work. That's why we have this thread and not 'brilliant, now we get 30 hours!!'.

There are councils that pay the childminder their hourly rate though, it all depends where you live and how mich you charge. Our childminder has assured me many times that she doesn't loose out on any money if we want to use the 15 hour entitlement and she is very happy to offer them to all 3/4 year olds. Her pay will be exactly the same and for us as parents it means we get most of the hours we need paid for by the government. In some situations it works.

Does anyone know in the existing system what the proportional difference is between the funding of the 15 hours in different areas? Surely it must be a standard rate otherwise childcare providers could push up their prices to get more funding?

Everyone in my area gets the same hourly rate, regardless of what their normal hourly rate is. That is childminders, nurseries and pre schools all get the same rate. The rate is only just over half my normal hourly equivalent.

I get that rate for 3 children. With my qualifications in a nursery I could care for 13 children, so would bring in more to the business than I do at the moment not that I would want to care for 13 children

Providers have to offer the 15 hours Free and are not allowed to charge a top up if the amount offered does not match their normal hourly rate.

^ Are you sure this is right? There is a nursery two of my friends use and they charge top-up fees for the 15 'free' hours a week. Over a £1 an hour I think. I think it's a rip-off but they don't want to question it as the nursery is outstanding and they don't want to get booted out.

We are lucky in that our childminder is accredited (not all are - who asked that?) so can claim the funding and takes 15 hours a week off our bill. I'm going on ML soon and want to reduce down to ds's funded hours to hold his place but if he was at a pre-school it would mean shifting him back and forth to 6 separate 2.5 hour sessions a week or paying for the time in-between the AM and PM sessions.

TBH, I'm not holding my breath to see what this proposal is all about. It was a strategic bribe for votes, imho.

Surely if you are a childminder and not getting your usual rate would you not just 'un-accredit' yourself? OK, so you can't take pre-schoolers (unless they were also getting their funded hours elsewhere) but it would mean all your places are fully funded?

I can't decide - yes of course I could stop offering funded places. It is of no benefit to me at all. I do it for the benefit of the parents and children I have spent years working with. I could also stop offering to take payments by vouchers, because they're a pain, but then the parents would get no tax breaks.

It would be better (from a childminders point of view) if the parents had to claim the money back.

In my area the funding is £1.20 per hour less than my hourly rate and the local authority are terrible payers. The money doesn't come until halfway through the term after I've cared for the child. Its a pain and one of the reasons I've opted out.

I won't offer funded hours again as it is just to much hassle and they barely cover my costs.

Parents being paid the entitlement was tried when the scheme was first introduced. It was changed because it was open to fraud - parents would obtain a registration number to claim under, then we'd never hear from them again, leaving us with a place to fill at short notice.

The NCMA campaigned against it because at least one childminder was held responsible and prosecuted for a parent's fraudulent claim.

Outraged, from a parent's point of view, the scheme does work. They should receive 15 free hours a week. When funded properly, it does work and worked for some time for providers and parents alike.

It's the underfunding that's the issue.

Of course, what they ought to do, if they're keeping in line with current Government Austerity thinking, is to means test it

I've heard so much about living within our means, providing a safety net only for those in need, and being unable to afford to pay for other people's benefits during the past few weeks - why should this benefit be any different?

If you view the 15 hours as childcare, then yes it could reasonably be be means tested (though in my view looking purely at income is unfair on those of us who have much higher outgoings due to regional property price variations). But the 15 hours funded care is supposed to be education. A sweeping generalisation I know, but children who have had a childminder/nursery/preschool experience tend to be better prepared for school. With class sizes as they are, reception teachers need all the help they can get

I'm firmly tongue-in-cheek, Jinx

It's just amused me, all this Austerity talk, yet they propose to introduce a new benefit of 30 hours free childcare for everyone - and they are calling it childcare now

'Outraged, from a parent's point of view, the scheme does work'

Not if you live in an area where childminders, nurseries and pre-schools can't afford to offer the funded places. It works in theory, not so much in practise.

It it's childcare now instead of education then surely nannies should also be included. There is no way the government is going to pay a nanny 30 hours a week. If the parents had £90 of childcare vouchers they could choose to employ a nanny, which for families with a few children would be more economic. The funding is for 3/4 year olds, but for the same price the nanny will also care for your 7 year old and your 1 year old.

What hours do you need to work to qualify for this? Is it any work at all or only full-time? Do you get half the hours if you're working part time? I don't think it's been well thought through!

That's what I said! When it's properly funded, it does work. I've been offering it ever since it was first introduced. Have you offered it at all?

I presume registration will be a requirement for nannies if they are to offer it. There is very little information at present, other than it is definitely being called "childcare".

You said the scheme does work. It doesn't (generally). It would work if it were properly funded (we agree on this), but it isn't (generally) properly funded and it won't (generally) be properly funded. It's a fantastic idea in theory, just not in practise (generally). That's why an alternative is needed. They don't have the budget to pay for 30 hours in all areas, that's why it isn't properly funded and also why a voucher payment or tax break would be more practical (for most people).

I haven't offered it, because I'm not a childminder, pre-school or nursery.

No, I said it does work from the parents' view when properly funded.

It was properly funded when it was first introduced and it worked then. That's why we've all been hanging on, trying to make it work since.

I only asked if you offered it because I wanted to see where you were coming from, maybe you offered it in one of those few areas still funding it properly.
I didn't meant it to be snippy, so I apologise if that's how it came across.

I hate to burst peoples bullets the majority of the places around were I live will NOT be offering the 30 free hours (other than the nursery farm type places that squeeze as many children with fewest staff raito legally permitted) as they will lose far too much money as the money the government things is fair is a pittance compared to the normal rates (I do not live in the south )

so unless the government forces every childcare place to accept them (they wont) its just a vote winning no promise as few if any place can afford to offer them unless the government relax the raito rules its just not viable

It just seems completely mad to me to offer a policy like this which is going to cost an absolute fortune at a time when so many frontline services are being cut back and it won't even be very helpful to a huge amount of people. I have three children and I live in a small town/village. The only place that could possibly offer the 30 hours is the local preschool which is open from 9-3.15. Even if I did want my 3 year old to be at preschool that much (I don't), 30 hours free will not help me with the cost of childcare because I will still have to pay for a nanny all day to enable me to work. Making childcare tax free will really help though. Could they not just extend this further i.e for every £1 a family spends on childcare, the government contributes 25-30p? If this policy is about childcare and not early years education, what about parents of 1 and 2 year olds?

Please support our campaign for the government to properly fund nurseries to provide 30 hours of childcare by signing our petition.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/116834/sponsors/6hMsxh9tRTkDq5jIcVu

Your petition has been rejected because it wasn't clear what you wanted (according to the message).

If you decide to redraft it and you want people from the home childcare board to sign it, perhaps including us and not restricting your petition to benefit private nursery settings would be a good idea. Why should we support a proposal for our competitors to be given preferential treatment?