If society is willing to fund childcare for working parents - should parents of disabled children be equally entitled to this?

[MamaLlama123]

As a society we spend millions on funding childcare for working parents - policy is framed as this “free childcare for working parents”. One of the main arguments for access to this free childcare is because women shouldn’t have to give up careers/ pensions/ financial independence when they become mothers

However families of disabled/ send children often find that these hours are unusable in practice because settings can’t meet needs/ reduced timetables or simply will not offer places. Is seems unfair that mothers are expected to step down from work/ reduce hours/ absorb all caring responsibility. nurseries/ schools will often say that the requires requires a 1:1 to access the setting which no one seems prepared to fund

The parents with the highest caring responsibilities often greater financial pressure have least access to childcare and the workforce. Any if lack of childcare pushes these women/ families out of the workforce - then shouldn’t the benefits system compensate for this, for the earning and pension losses that result. An example of this that the money spent on 30hrs free childcare place to be directly given the the family

Or should these mothers/ families just accept that they should be at home? If a mother of a disabled does wish to maintain her career/ work - is this a legitimate goal that society should support or is that selfish because her child’s needs are greater.

I would be interested to hear thoughts as well as hear from families in a similar position

Actually, it applies to all. LAs have a duty to ensure, as far as reasonably practicable (in the legal sense), there is sufficient childcare to meet requirements. This is set out in Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006. Unfortunately, it is another area where LAs regularly act unlawfully. If you want to raise this, Contact has a model letter you can use. The model letter mentions disabled children, but you can cut that section out if you want to.

I’ve just put in our circumstances, if I walked out of my job tomorrow.

Partner working, used a sample salary of circa £2100 pcm.

9 year old on high rate care and high rate mobility, and set it to include carers allowance just so I could watch it apply and then be removed.

£1176.74. That would go up slightly if limited work capability was granted.

It doesn’t include DLA because as I said earlier, that’s actually my son’s benefit, in his name. Adding it would add £195 per week.

Exactly. And most disabled preschool age DC are not in receipt of HRC and HRM.

Well it doesn’t apply to all because England does not = the UK

I didn’t say England does equal the UK, but, yes, I was talking about England because that is where that applies and where the pp you replied to saying that’s not the case for non-disabled DC lives (not a stalker, just remember her name from her thread about ferries earlier this month).

It's not for the taxpayer to bridge that gap. I'd love to get even a fraction of £4000 per year. You get less funding when the disabled child is an adult. I get nothing myself. I've been able to do a bit of work from home from time to time which is good for me in some ways. I'm not doing it at the moment though as it just adds stress and load. I don't expect that taxpayer to carry this. I see it as just the way the odds worked out for us. So we deal. How could it possibly be sustainable for the taxpayer to compensate the lost earnings of everyone caring for a disabled child or other person?

Well you said it applies to all and then used a piece of English legislation to back up that claim, English legislation clearly doesn’t mean it applies to all.

Yes I should have clarified all in England. I suppose just like you should have clarified you weren’t talking about England when you said it isn’t the case for non-disabled DC.

The legislation doesn’t just cover England BTW. Section 22 includes Wales. I think there is also separate legislation covering Scotland. I will dose if I can find it.

Why would I have to clarify I’m not talking about England, England isn’t the default.

I didn’t say it was the default. I meant because you said it wasn’t the case for non-disabled children. When it is for some. And as I posted in my previous reply, although you might have missed it since I edited it and X-posted, it applies in Wales too.

Found it. A slightly narrower scope for Scotland under section 47 of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 where authorities have a duty to make available provision for all 3&4 year olds and eligible 2 year olds in their area.

Doesn't that assume that the parent is a low earner though, and is also not generating any wealth or jobs themselves (e.g. through growth of a business). It also ignores the long term costs of joblessness - health, housing, intergenerational poverty, impact on other children etc etc.

Not all children with additional needs need hugely expensive care. Sometimes it's just a different type of setting than is ordinarily available, or some basic adaptations at an after school club.

The maths is a lot more complicated than this. The trouble is the policymaking looks at short term (immediate costs) rather than lifetime costs. Because politics works on short cycles.

I think this is all part of a bigger conversation regarding the welfare bill and state vs individual responsibility.

While services (nhs, social care, education, military etc) are underfunded and society as a whole is seeing less return for their tax any increase to the benefit of others or specific groups is going to face criticism. If everything was well funded and the majority of people felt that they had a decent life style giving more to benefits etc would be more agreeable.

I do think that people generally have become more dependant on the state. Not all their fault, universal credit to top wages up as opposed to wages paying enough to live on is a prime example of how this has been nurtured. I don't the Government has the funds now to even start looking at this even if it means more parent carers can get back into paid work and if they did they'd be dragged over the coals for it. If anything I'd imagine spending in these types of areas will be decreased.

In principle yes I agree their should be the same options available for all but in reality that just doesn't work and the parents bear that responsibility.

As an addition in my LA PA hours given for respite cannot be used to facilitate work.

I don’t agree with this sentiment, OP:
One of the main arguments for access to this free childcare is because women shouldn’t have to give up careers/ pensions/ financial independence when they become mothers

The main argument is that we need people in work to sustain the economy. Women tend to want to maintain their careers, but that’s not the reason the government wants us in work.

When you make a choice to be a parent, you accept a level of unfortunate risk that your child may have additional needs. If this happens, of course you are expected to as a parent to step down from other responsibilities - mostly because you love them and want to make sure they have the best shot at life, but also because you have made a choice to have the child/ren. You will get support for that in other ways that working mothers won’t (DLA, grants, discounted local services, blue badge). I’m not saying they’re amazing things to have as being not just a parent but a carer is hard and those parents should be given everything they need, but it’s probably worth a lot more than funded hours.

One, why?

Pensioners have a right to the pension they been told to expect for 50 years. To change that would require an act of Parliament,and no-one over the age of 50 would vote for that, so it is most unlikely to happen. No govt would survive even the suggestion.
I can see them changing the NI requirements to 40 years paid in though.

I’m a working parent of a complex needs child and we do get all of the things you listed.

My son gets HRC & HRM DLA.

We’re going swimming on Sunday, for £7, because he goes for free with a carer, so we only pay for one of us.

He has a blue badge.

The only thing we don’t get is any means tested grants or benefits. But the specific things you listed absolutely are available to us as working SENd parents.

But then you also get funded hours for working parents right? So you’re juggling both and you deserve both

I agree that removing the state pension from current pensioners would be politically impossible. My point wasn’t that it should be removed. It was that when people say “the country can’t afford” support for disabled children or carers, that is often a statement about political priorities rather than pure affordability. The UK already chooses to spend large sums in areas it considers important, including on pensioners regardless of assets. Whether we should also choose to invest more in disabled children and family carers is a separate question.

We did get funded hours, that we couldn’t use.

Which would be the same as any other SENd parent, but we didn’t have the cost (both financial and physical!) of being FT at home with him.

Work is actually respite for us, it’s less full on than he is, and the costs financially increase probably tenfold when he’s not at school (or nursery then).

We both worked 4 days flexi, he went to specialist nursery for 2 mornings, and we were well supported by grandparents.

I can’t see where the money would come from to give more support. We get higher rate DLA plus middle rate mobility. I work part time so can’t claim carers’. But actually, being given more money wouldn’t help as I don’t know what we’d spend it on - there isn’t any respite etc round here.

It’s definitely a postcode lottery. We had an amazing nursery who were fantastic with disabled children. The senco was an absolute godsend. My child is now at an amazing school 9-4 every day but this wasn’t always the case.

Having a disabled child can be pretty unfair but I can’t see things changing much.

I’m in Scotland and don’t think there’s any free childcare until the kid is 3 or something. No grandparents or village. So.. that’s that decided.

We get higher rate DLA plus middle rate mobility.

There isn’t a middle rate mobility. The mobility component of DLA only has 2 rates - low or high.

You will get support for that in other ways that working mothers won’t (DLA, grants, discounted local services, blue badge).

DLA and blue badges have nothing to do with parental work status. Discounted local services are mostly not based on work status either. Some working families are eligible for means tested grants too.

We must get low rate in that case

1. what respite ?!!!!
2. carers allowance is a pittance that needs to be increased and paid directly to whoever is caring for the disabled child / young adult .