The government has brought in “free” childcare for many 3 and 4 years olds from today, however as the full picture emerges, it would seem that many, if not all local childcarers and nursery settings could suffer and may be forced to close their doors as a result of these changes. Nursery owner Josy Thompson explains how these changes effect the childcare providers in our region.
“Today many of us should be rejoicing in delight as we are now apparently receiving 30 hours free care for our 3 and 4 year olds!
The Government will no doubt be praising the new initiative as a huge success for hard working parents and patting themselves on the back for delivering one of their key manifesto pledges.
But many of you will have already discovered that ’30 hours free childcare’ is not all it’s cracked up to be. Firstly the ’30’ hours are term-time only, and so are really 22 hours per week if like most people you work for 12 months of the year.
We all want to help you save around £5000 a year on your childcare costs, but not at the detriment of our livelihoods and sanity.
For the vast majority of parents, it’s a case of ‘subsidised childcare’ not ‘free childcare’. The scheme has been so chronically underfunded by government that the only way many childcare providers can make it financially viable, is for them to charge for all the extras they offer. At our nurseries it costs us £0.80ph for every hour of ‘free’ childcare we deliver unless we charge for ‘additional services’. We know that some nurseries have lower costs and so may have a smaller shortfall, and be able to make ends meet, but for most of us this is not the case.
We don’t get paid a fee or slice anything off the funding available to cover the huge administration job we do to claim the funding for you; every single penny is passed on to you.
Neither do we get paid for the hours we spend helping parents navigate the atrocious HMRC computer system that has failed for so many of you. We have parents and carers who are at their wits end trying to get a code before it’s too late.
Childcare providers are also doing a huge communications task (unpaid again) on behalf of the government, signposting parents to get help or apply for compensation when the system has failed them. We are also expected to help parents when HMRC get it wrong, for example it’s left up to us to explain to parents why they’ve been given eligibility codes for children who are not the right age and therefore do not qualify for the funding.
The very scheme that is supposed to give you free childcare could in fact end up giving no childcare, as 38% of us do not believe our business will be sustainable in 12 months’ time (figure from Pre-School Learning Alliance survey).
I think I can speak on behalf of the majority of the childcare sector and say that we are doing our very best to deliver a flawed government initiative that is neither being funded properly nor has the IT infrastructure to deliver it efficiently.
Please support your childcare provider and ignore what the politicians would like you to believe.
There is no such thing as free childcare and there never will be….
Josy Thompson
Nursery Owner
On behalf of most childminders, preschools, school nurseries and private nurseries.
