Ooh Look. Gordon U-turns on childcare vouchers

[onebatmother]

Well I never.

purepurple wasn't there a recent study that disputed that the best way to give poorer children a better start in life was external care.

I think the results said that very low income families were less likely to set boundaries and resulted in poorer performing children as a result. I paraphrase because I only skimmed it - it was only released last week I think.

I'm with Ribena - it does undoubtedly penalise parents living in areas of the country with higher living costs.

I wouldn;t claim anyone on £40,000 is poor but it can be a struggle. Childcare vouchers were only brought in by a labour govt in 2005, its really unfair to be changing the goal posts so soon.

If the govt is worried that higher rate tax payers are benefiting unfairly then limit relief to the basic rate only and remove it at a much higher level eg £100,000

The truth is that having committed to increasing nursery provision for 2 yr olds Mr Brown (having spent all the spare cash and more besides) has to find somewhere to get it from.

ahem, can i ask why you lot aren't going bananas about the fact that this scheme only benefits 340,000 parents? farking hell, too busy moaning about how people are struggling on £40 grand.

self-interest

It would be interesting to see a breakdown of why working families don't claim:

• unaware of scheme
• employer doesn't offer it
• not using eligible childcare
• self-employed

we're off to pollok park today, it had better not rain.

Dh is taking ds to the far park so that I can catch up on housework [dull] so ditto re: rain.

We're off to ToysRUs in Enfield. No words.

"one of the hallmarks of the past three terms of this Labour government has been its commitment to what has been clunkily called, progressive universalism. This is the idea that in order to achieve public consent for the transfer of money to the most disadvantaged, middle earners should also feel bound into state provision."
Guardian 13 ndov

It would have been v good fi there'd been a universal basic rate tax relief, but that wasn't the alternative offer.

how many parents of childcare-requiring age) are there, does anyone know?

you know what I mean

parents of children who might require childcare

My workplace is in a voucher scheme, but I have not been able to use it, even though I am just a basic rate taxpayer. My children are all school age now, but when I did have pre-schoolers, the only form of childcare I could afford was an aupair. I oould have a whole week of aupair plus for the cost of a childminder, and probably more like one day of nursery.

Riven they are a salary sacrifice scheme where by £243 a month can be paid to CM/(qualifying)Nanny/Nursery before tax & NI are removed - so saving the parents the tax & NI on that amount

Aitch,

Actually, I do think it is appalling that the scheme only benefits the number of parents it does. I think it's horribly unfair that single parents are penalised, I think it's downright daft that your employer has to choose to participate and I think it's bonkers that the self employed don't benefit. It is a deeply flawed scheme, but the Government is talking about replacing it with free nursery places for older children (structured in a way that most people say is useless as childcare if you're working) and I was responding in the direct context of that news item.

I have said on other threads that I think childcare should be more directly tax deductible and that I wouldn't have a problem if the tax relief was limited to basic rate.

I also didn't say that people earning £40,000 a year are poor. I said that they were not well off in London (which is my area) and I totally stand by that statement. If you take a single mother earning £40,000 a year in London, paying two sets of nursery fees say, life is pretty tight.On some rough figures, someone earning £40,000 takes home £2,460 a month. Sounds a lot, until you work out that a London rent on a two bed flat could easily be £1,000. The weekly average nursery fees for London I just found online are £168, so call that roughly £1,300 for two children. You're already at £2,300 and you haven't paid any bills yet or bought food. Now I realise that childminders may be cheaper, etc, etc, but the point is that living costs in London can be so high that I stand by my statement that making the cut off higher rate tax payers would have the result, in London, of hurting many of those 'hard working families' Labour always talks about wanting to help.

Oh, just to add, I do realise that, for the sake of simplicity, I haven't tried to add in any benefits or tax credits, but my point still stands. Plenty of London families on that kind of income are counting the pennies in the supermarket, not splashing the cash in fancy restaurants (which is the image the government seems keen to conjure up when they talk about 'higher rate tax payers').

I bet he never had any intention of scrapping the childcare vouchers!

Threatens to scrap them, then does another U turn and supposedly "saves" them, after "listening" to the electorate??

The sooner he goes, the better imho!

for london, substitute edinburgh, glasgow, wherever. newsflash: london is not the only expensive city in the uk.

a) I did say any place that had higher than usual cost of living

b) is it so unusual to be concerned about something which makes you worse off when you operating on the margins already. I'm not going to starve to death but am not looking forward to losing about £15 a week when that is my spare spending/saving money.

c) I think the alternative that they want to spend the money on is pointless - 2 hrs nursery care for 2 yr olds. They struggle to provide 2.5 hours a day for 3 year olds round here. In fact they don't, there is one state nursery which providees free nursery for 3 year olds - all other nursery charge a top up which ranges from £7 extra PER DAY up to £15 extra PER DAY. The less well off don;t bother until school starts unless they can get one of the 60 free places in the borough. Hardly what the free nursery places for 3 year olds was intended to acheive I doubt . The 2 yr old scheme will be exactly the same IMVHO.

I did say on another thread that I was speaking about London as it's where I live and what I know. Sorry if that wasn't clear here.

My point holds though. By removing the vouchers for those on higher rate, you are disproportionately affecting those who live in expensive cities. Far better off families (in terms of disposable income) in cheaper areas will continue to benefit.

A slight tangent, but Edinburgh, fair enough, but Glasgow? I've just looked and whereas the average London three bed house price is £648,000 and £271,000 in Edinburgh, it's £159,000 in Glasgow. A colleague of DH's lives in Glasgow and works out of that office. Whereas we live in a two bed house on a main road (and feel lucky), he lives in a four bed detached in a similar suburb. Yes, the salary is much lowerfor the same job, but the money goes much, much further.

ps. I realise I'm not accounting for 'offers over', but that would apply to Edinburgh too...

my love, please show me exactly where i can buy a house in glasgow for that price because i am ROFLing here.

No idea, but the data was from this survey. A lot of Londoners would probably ROFL at theirs too.

Anyway, whether or not we agree that Glasgow is pricey, point is that those in expensive places will be hit by this at a far lower 'real' level of wealth,

pah. so move.

Yes, it's that simple...

and for the record a three bedroom house where i live would set you back about half a mill or so.

Hmm. I can't see that this is sustainable in the long-term so I'd be interested to see what will happen after the election

My plan is better if the aim of the government is to get people into work - which is what I think the aim SHOULD be. Otherwise, as Aitch said, this is benefitting a very small number of families