Fancy telling MNHQ what you think about the parties' childcare proposals?

[RowanMumsnet]

Afternoon all

You may have seen over the past couple of days that Labour and the Conservatives have made manifesto commitments on childcare in England, Wales and NI, in addition to the current 15 free hours per week for 3-4yos (and some 2yos), and the tax-free childcare scheme that will come online this autumn.

Labour has promised 25 hours per week of free childcare for working parents of 3-4yos and guaranteed wraparound childcare in primaries 8am-6pm, 'underpinned' by new National Primary Childcare Service - a not-for-profit organisation promoting the voluntary and charitable delivery of extracurricular activities.

The Conservatives have promised 30 hours per week of free childcare for working parents of 3-4yos.

The LibDem manifesto hasn't been launched yet, but it's expected to promise something along the lines of 15 hours a week for all two-year-olds (at the moment, only 40% of 2yos qualify for it) and 20 hours for all three and four-year-olds, plus 15 hours a week for all children of working parents aged between 9 months and two years. (Check against delivery, as the journos say - the LibDem manifesto will be launched tomorrow.)

The Green Party promises a 'free but voluntary universal early education and childcare service for all children from birth until compulsory education age, which we would raise to 7 years'.

UKIP don't seem to have any specific childcare proposals at the moment (but do please let us know if you know differently!)

As ever we'd welcome the input of Scottish MNers if you'd like to tell us how the Scottish government's free childcare offer is working out for you.

So what do you think of the policy offers? Are they good enough? Are the funding promises convincing? Would they make it easier for you and/or your partner to work, if that's what you'd like to do? Will they make it easier on your wallet? Do they go far enough, or too far? Are there big gaps in provision?

Would any of this sway your vote?

We're all ears.

Thanks
MNHQ

Sorry, should have added, it's just blatant vote buying.

Yes Pauline, I'm sure they have a utopic vision of the entire nation's children in a huge warehouse somewhere, where the parents drop them diligently every morning and set out on their 10 hour day of NMW slave drudgery. In fact, if they are really clever, they can put the toddlers to work in some capacity. I'm sure there's something productive they could be doing. After all no one's any use to them if they're not contributing to the GDP. Sadly, I'm not joking!

Would love to know where the cuts elsewhere are going to come from to fund this.Funnily enough they're keeping quiet.

Yes LePetit, they are being very silent about where this £12 billion of welfare cuts are coming from. I heard Liz Truss on the radio this afternoon. The evasiveness regarding the cuts told me everything I need to know.

Absolutely, don't forget it's all working parents. So those with six figure salaries as much as those on minimum wage. A nice payment for the wealthy and a goady stick of 'get a job or else your child's education will suffer' to sahps (haven't seen anything about actual practical help to get them back to work if they wish to) and removal of choice from parents as to how they want family life to be.

Where I live, the council are struggling to meet the existing commitments to provide 15 hours care. There isn't the capacity to provide 30 hours a week. Politicians make these announcements without understanding the realities.

Really annoyed at newspapers talking about X hours free per week.

It is X hours per week for ~ 39/52 weeks of the year isn't it for most of the parties?

MNHQ can you clarify that in the first post?

Lepetit, how do you know what I can afford? With high mortgage costs, travel costs to get to work, obviously the bills to cover like everyone else, I don't have a spare £1000 a month for nursery fees but earn too much to get any child tax credit. This is a big part of the reason why I haven't yet had children as I can't afford it.

Yes LePetit, they are being very silent about where this £12 billion of welfare cuts are coming from. I heard Liz Truss on the radio this afternoon. The evasiveness regarding the cuts told me everything I need to know.

Yep-it was shocking.

Tory cuts will probably be no more child benefit for anyone earning over £20k and loads of disability funding cuts. Pupil Premium as well probably.

I'm hoping it's going to be available to all, not just certain children (as the current 2 year old free hours is). My little boy (3.5) goes to a private nursery two days a week. I don't work but I do have chronic heath issues and so it gives me a chance to rest and to attend medical appts. It costs us quite a bit to send him though, despite his free 15 hours. Our nursery bill has reduced by about £160 a month since January though (when the free hours kicked in). The way our nursery does it is to pro-rata the free hours over the year so that we pay the same amount each month. So we don't see the big reduction but do have a smaller reduction every single month. Our nursery is open all year except over Christmas so it's quite handy being done like this.

I am about to embark on some actual work for the first time in 7 years, since my eldest was born, and the possibility of my little boy going to nursery for an extra day for free is good news for me as it means I could work a little more (he absolutely adores nursery and begs to go every morning!).

Realistically it will be too late even for our 11 week old baby, by the time they bring changes in. Therefore, at a personal level, it won't influence my voting, and I doubt that the people who might benefit will really pay much attention as their children are still a twinkle in their eye.

While pregnant with her, I was struck by how difficult it would be for me to return to work if our baby had complex special needs. We need my salary to keep our house. I would like to see the provision of childcare for those with more complex needs to be guaranteed, funded and for sufficient hours, so that their parents can work if they want/need to. That would be my first priority.

I think that it makes sense for the provision of funded childcare to start when paid maternity leave ends. Leaving a gap between 1 and 2/3 must force some parents to give up work for that period when they may not want to. And returning after a career break, potentially looking for a part time role, is harder than returning to an existing job and requesting part time work in that role.

I agree that the level of funding matters enormously. DD's nursery gets approximately £3.50 for government funded hours and charges £6 for additional hours. Clearly the parents paying for additional hours are subsidising those who only use funded hours. By increasing the number of government funded hours either the price for additional hours has to increase or ratios and quality will fall.

We are in the lucky position of being able to afford to pay higher nursery fees, partly because we have a 4 year gap between our DC, so will only be paying for one child at a time. Therefore we would seek out high quality care, even if that meant foregoing state funding. But that would make for a less satisfactory experience even for the children at the better funded private nursery. DD1's nursery has as diverse an intake as our area allows for. She understands that people come from different cultural backgrounds, have different family shapes, have different needs and all together make up her nursery community and the wider community. I don't think that a two tier system would provide this experience and these are harder things to learn later.

I don't understand the push for getting children into as much childcare as possible as early as possible. I would much rather there were policies for promoting flexible working hours, working from home, longer maternity leave, helping women get back into work after taking a break to have children...

I agree, Christmas name. I'm not sure what impact trying to get every woman in work and every child in childcare ASAP will have on society long term? Is that really such a good thing? Fine if you want to get back as soon as possible but a lot of jobs are very inflexible and children get il!

ChristmasName I agree. The whole childcare push frustrates me as it doesn't acknowledge parents who want to stay at home. It is all about tax tax tax, and no one seems to be considering the children in all of it. What about children with disabilities who need to be cared for by parents? What about - and I should probably whisper this - the idea that perhaps children do well having a parent at home with them for the first few years?

It should be about enabling parents (where appropriate) to look after their own children, where is the focus on the family unit. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying parents shouldnt work, and each family situation is different, but to me, putting children into free childcare while mum goes out to work because there isn't any help for SAHPs is so backwards.

In my opinion We need to be looking at housing prices, rent caps, living wage, travel costs, disability allowances - cost of living to enable families who want to, to be able to cope financially on a single wage while one parent is at home with the children. It's all money money money, tax tax tax, cutting the benefits and I'm Alright Jack. Won't somebody think of the children? :(

I do not believe there will be wrap around care for children with severe sn because there is no one to provide it. I couldn't get the full 15 hours nursery education for my son because there are not enough suitable providers.

I don't think we can afford to extend free childcare and most certainly not at a time when the poorest are facing cuts and sanctions left right and centre.
I also don't think it should become the norm for children to spend 50 hours a week in the school building. A lot of working adults don't even spend that much time in their place of work each week.
My son hated the wraparound care at school and he only had to attend for an hour 3 times a week. It would be great if all the childcare could be age appropriate and good quality with decent stimulating activities put on (or the opportunity to chill out quietly) but the reality is that a lot of wraparound care is of shit quality and extending it without proper funding (which the country cannot afford) will not be right for the children.

Labour are suggesting that the wraparound care is provided by volunteers so that one won't get off the ground!!

Do any of you fancy volunteering your time to look after loads of children in an overcrowded school hall from 7.30-8.50 and from 3,30-6 so that other parents can work?!

I do not believe there will be wrap around care for children with severe sn because there is no one to provide it. I couldn't get the full 15 hours nursery education for my son because there are not enough suitable providers.

Zazzie - I totally agree with that point. A big chunk of the problem is the refusal to acknowledge the extra costs in providing for children with severe SN. I work with a community pre-school and we often struggle with funding when we have children with SN as they need extra staff but don't get money to pay them

We are trying for children at the moment, so the different child care policy options are interesting to me.

NONE of these options seem particularly helpful.

The Greens are madder than a box of frogs. How will they pay for full time child care from birth up until seven????? However, at least they are the only party who see the discrepancy between maternity leave and childcare help.

Statutory Maternity leave = 52 weeks, help with child care = 3 year olds.

So your job will cover you for a period of one year, then what? You have to either quit your job, then try and re find a job when your child hits three, or you have to switch to part time (if you can), and pay for private nursery, or you have to go back to work after a year and pay extortionate child care fees for two years.

I don't want to be forced to stay at home because we can't afford a different option. I don't want to lose my job!

I was pretty irritated with a pp who said that childcare shouldn't receive any government funding, and the money should go elsewhere. It's not just a question of "tightening belts". If you work in London, or other big cities, child care costs are quite literally jaw dropping. For some provisional scans of nurseries, the average cost I've seen has been between 1000-1200 a month. You get a ten per cent discount for a second child.

One of my school friends has just had to give up work. She had twins, and despite a pretty damn good job, couldn't afford over 2k on childcare every month. Let alone commuting costs.

I've paid a fuck ton of tax in my life time. It would be quite nice to get something back out of it at some point.

Its a vote buying bribe. I struggled to oay for childcare as I had to work, not for luxuries but to live, free childcare woukd have helped but what I wanted was the flexibility to look after my own children! With 12 billion welfare cuts, I wonder how they are going to fund it, I bet cb will go for most people unless perhaps they get tc but I am certain that eligibility will change. Possible cuts to carers benefit is an insult to carers who already get paid a pittance.

I do not believe there will be wrap around care for children with severe sn because there is no one to provide it. I couldn't get the full 15 hours nursery education for my son because there are not enough suitable providers.

I gave up work for this very reason. My SN child needs an absolute minimum of 1:1 care (often higher). There is no childcare to meet his needs, even his SN school can't provide wraparound care that would meet his needs, let alone any outside providers.

1. they will use it to force lp's back to work sooner. ( a bad thing, speaking as an always working depressed and burnt out lp)

2. flexible working is more important than free childcare once a child starts school . They should be putting pressure on employers.

none of the proposals are that great.

I'd like to know where these politicians are getting this pricing from.

I heard David Cameron talking about 30hr of childcare a week having a cost of £5000. That'd be a bargain, certainly much cheaper than I can find.

Also here in Northern Ireland there aren't enough places for the current offering of 15 hrs. In my town there's a reliance on volunteer run playgroups to provide the funded places. Where will all this extra capacity magically come from ?

I heard David Cameron talking about 30hr of childcare a week having a cost of £5000. That'd be a bargain, certainly much cheaper than I can find.

As a guess, I'd say he's pricing it based on around 48 weeks of the year and at the derisory current funding rate.

£3.50 per hour x 30 hours x48 weeks= £5,040.

What is missing from that is that nurseries, etc aren't going to take the funding at that rate for 30 hours. They often manage on 15 by fudging the other costs to make up the shortfall.

I can see the Tories relying on a lot of 'volunteers' to do things that should be paid for-childcare, library staff etc if they get in.

Who do they expect to do all this volunteering? How will those volunteers afford to live?