give nurseries more money not more free childcare hours
A south London father who is facing a hike of almost £300 per month in nursery costs from April has called on the Government to give more funding to nurseries before it rolls out an expansion to free childcare later this year.
Working parents of three and four-year-olds are currently able to get 30 hours of free childcare at nurseries through the Government’s childcare scheme.
From April the Government is due to offer working parents 15 hours of free childcare per week, and this policy will be extended to nine-month-old infants from September.
It has also pledged to offer 30 hours of free childcare for all under fives by September 2025.
Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme ahead of Wednesday’s Spring budget, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said he was “confident” the Government would be able to deliver the plans.
Rob Joyce, who is set to receive free childcare for his two-year-old from April, this week received the news that the fees for hours outside of that at the nursery his child attends would be going up by £200 per month.
On top of this increase, which Mr Joyce says most of his friends with young children are also facing at other nurseries, a charge of £75 per month is being introduced to cover basic necessities like food and nappies, which were previously included in the nursery fees.
This will bring the monthly cost of childcare for his two-year-old son up to almost £1700 per month, up from around £1400 currently.
“It’s not the nursery’s fault. The money is basically being used to keep the lights on. The issue is it’s not being subsidised enough,” Mr Joyce told i.
The Chancellor said that to implement the roll out of the plans, an additional 40,000 more people need to be employed in the childcare sector.
It comes after Labour said it had compiled a dossier that indicates more than 180,000 childcare places across England could be at risk due to over 3,000 nursery closures.
Mr Joyce believes many nurseries which provide free childcare are struggling to afford their running costs because they aren’t receiving enough Government funding – and are having to hike their fees to make up the shortfall.
He is urging the Government to give nurseries more money not more free childcare, saying: “Issue number one is not the number of places. Issue number one is that the money is not even there for these initial ones.”
News of the fee hike was delivered in a letter during the week, just over a month away from the extra £200 bill coming into force.
Mr Joyce said: “The department manager was very apologetic about it, and I get the impression they are working it out as they go along.
“I’d normally have expected them to flag this a few months ago, but it seems like they were waiting on something else coming from the government.”
A survey by campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed found more than a third of parents with children eligible for the scheme are considering quitting their jobs or reducing their hours over concerns they will be worse off due nursery fee hikes.
The survey of 11,100 parents with children under the age of five also found costs for childcare and top-up fees are increasing for most families – meaning cost savings from the scheme will be lower than parents expected.
The National Day Nurseries Association (NDSA) is calling for a boost in funding for nurseries and an end to it being under business rates ahead of the budget on 6 March.
Chief Executive of NDSA, Purnima Tanuku, said: “We have been calling for government to address underfunding for years. We can clearly see that increasing hourly rates can have a positive impact, with the numbers of providers saying they cannot cover their costs falling.
“However, for the vast majority the hourly rates are still not keeping pace with rising costs.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We are rolling out the largest ever expansion in childcare support in England’s history, set to save families using the full 30 funded hours an average of £6,900 per year.
“Our average funding rates for new entitlements are expected to be substantially higher than the hourly fees paid by parents last year and we are already seeing providers looking to expand their placements across the country.
“We are continuing to support providers to deliver each stage of the rollout through increases to the rates we pay, our national recruitment campaign and establishing more qualification routes into the sector.”
