15-30 free hours for parents: what's your opinions?

[Suzycb]

From September, this increases to 30 hours free for parents earnings up to £100,000.00 per each parent. (That's up to £200,000.00 in total). When this scheme initially extended to childminders, I thought to help actual parents especially any single parents out there who wanted to work but can't afford childcare because their child is under 3 years old. As a childminder who works alone means I don't have enough children to be able to even break even after what's the government is offering as in incentive towards the scheme. What's left for working almost 11 hours per day? I feel that we (childminders) haven't received advocates on our behalf to support the dilemma left to survive on. At the moment though not compulsive to accept the scheme within our settings, however, if a parent is offered this deal elsewhere, of course they'll move on. I just I cannot afford surviving on this and causing so many nurseries being shut down because nothing left to pay staff.

They also spread the funding over 12 months rather than only giving it term time only.

That is something they can do. So instead of say 15 hours over 38 weeks, they do 11 hours over 52 weeks. Mathematically that does not quite work out but close enough for this example.

That's the same thing though isn't it?

So in hours, rather than 15 hrs pw/38 weeks of the year we get 10.96 hrs pw 52 weeks of the year.

Those that are funded/term time only don't pay anything other than additional fees for meals.

Yes, same number of annual hours, just split differently. However not everyone realises that, they may be thinking they get 15 hours per week, every week.

I think it's disaster, tbh. The government's reimbursement rate isn't high enough for nurseries and preschools to survive. One of our area's best closed down last year because of it. They're not charities run by volunteers Staff need to be paid a proper rate, and the reimbursement rates aren't high enough to make them viable.

Sorry I butted in and confused things

I think it's a bad thing personally. It's going to put nannies out of a job in my opinion!

It could certainly stir up the childcare market. What happens when the dust settles is anyone's guess.

In my area childminders have been told the 30 hours start in April BUT we won't be paid for those hours until July so effectively we have to offer 15 hours a week in advance of payment! I have 2 children eligible in my care. So I'm supposed to work 30 hours extra a week but no pay for 3 months!!!!!!!

So childminders are expected to earn 50-70% of their usual amount per child for 38 weeks of the year

But if they don't earn enough per year and get universal credit, they get penalised

And the government wonder why there aren't enough childminders

nannynick interesting ...we pay a set price as we are full time but I have seen cost breakdowns so perhaps I should expect fees to increase more than usual over the next couple of years

I live in a trial area for this so started back in September. It has been very contentious as a lot of the nurseries / childminders just couldn't afford it. At one point it looked like there would be a city wide boycott.

From what I can gather (and it has been discussed to death on the local "mummy sites!) it was incredibly important to the government that the trial was a success here (as I think this is the only place to be doing the trial city wide - other places are just doing it for a certain number of selected providers).

Anyway - the rate that was being given has been bumped up massively (it was - according to a quick google of our local council site - £3.38 for the first 15 hours and then £3.95 for the second 15 hours and was increased to £4 for the full 30.)

At the same time a lot of the nurseries have bumped their prices up a bit.

At £4 per hour this gives the nurseries close to their normal rate (and by my calculations more than they would had there been 15 hours at the old rate and the rest at the their real rate - if that makes sense).

There is a certain level of resentment from parents of younger children - particularly as they suspect that the whole thing will be abolished before their kids hit 3.

My son is 3 so we have received the hours so obviously I am very happy about the 30 hours. Nursery is open 10.5 hours per day and year round the 15 hours becomes about 11 so it is covering 2 days a week of nursery for us. I only work 3 days a week so that translates to a fall of two thirds of our childcare bill.

Great to hear from someone in a pilot area.

If they get the money right then it will work but £4 maybe ok in Yorkshire but may not be enough for Kent. They are varying it a bit but is that going to be enough?

If nurseries and childminders have to offer loss making sessions from age 3 onwards, surely they will just increase the cost for under 3s (as well as hours outside of core and extras). So it will be even more unaffordable.

Childcare settings wouldn't get away with charging more, there are already threads on here like

I was expecting my bill to go down to £x when the free childcare hours kicked in, but it has only gone to £y because they are charging for a,b+c/charging part time rate for rest of the hours not full time rate. Is this right?

MN would be full of them and the advise given would be that it's not right, do something about it

And sometimes we wouldn't have any under 3s to 'over charge ' anyway. For example I have 2x3 yr olds and 1x4 yr old all on funded hours at the moment.

I'd go out of business if I put my prices up any more.

"d I would be 100% behind it if the government were truly funding the hours and not just pretending they are. "

This. It's a terrible scheme for this reason.

Why doesn't everyone boycott the scheme? If it's so bad, don't offer it!
What will the government do? Force you to do it?

Because larger providers can offer it, by increasing costs elsewhere, and people want to be competitive.

In an area of expensive property and high costs generally, childminders are in competition with both large nursery chains who can benefit from some economies of scale, and charity and church organisations who do not charge economic rates to parents. I no longer childmind as it became clear that however long or hard I worked I could not make a decent wage and would in fact be better off doing absolutely anything else at NMW. Added to this, childminding is not a secure income, as parents may lose their own jobs, move house, decide to have a baby, etc etc and their own childcare requirements change all the time in a way which cannot be prepared or compensated for.

If I stopped taking funding my children would probably leave at age 3. This is something I have considered, but it's not what the parents or their children want, so I work with them.

If any other local competition is accepting children on funded hours, unfortunalty, I think I/other Childminder's have to accept them too (in my town where Childminder's are very much in the minority). If we don't take them, likeHSMM says, they will leave to where they get the free funded places. Although cost isn't important to all parents, it plays quite a big part in the decision and the £200+ a month saving that one of my parents is getting now because of the free 15 hours is only going to be seen as a blessing to them.
However, I think the government should have taken a slightly different route for the 30 hours free and gone for 10 hours free for each child from when they entered childcare. There are an increasing number of babies and toddlers using childcare and I think the majority of parents would appreciate a little bit of help each year, rather than a lot of help in only one year of their child's life. If they are not funding the scheme adequelty it makes no difference though, childcare still costs and if they want to offer it to parents for free it still needs funding correctly.
My council is in the bottom 5 for its funding rate I think. It is so frustrating to see how much more other areas are given for doing the same job as I'm doing.

I also find it incredible that families that are making up to £200,000 between them get free, subsidized childcare.

So much for means-testing for the elite.

It should be phased out much lower than that.

Because it is early years education, not childcare.

All the providers in my area charge hefty top up fees on top of what they get from the govt.

I think on paper they say this top up is for snacks, extra curricular (music, trips) and extra time (my daughter does 3 hrs 15 min x 5 days, so 15 min extra per day!) as they are not allowed to charge top ups

In reality we all know it's a top up because the govt funding won't cover costs let alone make any profit.

All the private providers in my area do the same - albeit with some variation in the size of top up. So parents don't simply run off to the setting offering free hours because there isn't one (except for the 2 or 3 state nursery schools which are very hard to get into).