Rural Childcare

The unintended consequences of the projected increase to the minimum wage (which in principle has to be a good thing) are spelt out in terms of childcare here. They will be felt most acutely in rural areas where sparsity drives up costs. This article tells us:

Fewer than half of nurseries are likely to extend free childcare places for pre-schoolers to 30 hours a week amid major concerns about funding, research suggests.

Under Government plans, free childcare and early-years education for three and four-year-olds in England is to be doubled from 15 to 30 hours for each week of the school year, a move ministers say will help support families. Pilots of the scheme start this autumn.

But while many nurseries are keen to help parents by offering the full 30 hours, there are fears that government funding to provide the places will not be enough to cover their cost, according to research by the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA).

A survey conducted by the association found that 45 per cent of the nurseries polled say they are likely to extend the number of free hours on offer.

At the moment, nurseries are managing to offer 15 hours of free childcare a week because they plug the shortfall in government funding –  in practice, this means that parents pay a higher rate for the hours their child spends in nursery above 15 hours. The average nursery has to absorb around £34,000 a year due to the funding gap, with 89 per cent of nurseries making a loss on free places.

“Doubling this entitlement to 30 funded hours for working parents of three and four-year-olds is going to increase this shortfall further but leave nurseries with no means of making up that loss,” the report says.

The NDNA said its survey had shown that only a third of youngsters aged three and four attend nursery for more than 30 hours a week.

NDNA chief executive Purnima Tanuku said: “The nursery sector is fully behind the principle of more support for parents. But serious funding shortfalls stand in the way of nurseries getting on board, despite their desire to help families with free childcare”.

Education and childcare minister Sam Gyimah said: “We are backing families and funding the sector, with £1 billion extra funding every year by 2020, including £300 million annually to increase the national average funding rate, to incentivise and attract providers to deliver the full 30-hour free offer to parents”.

Back in 2014 the RSN highllighted that average prices for weekly care of an infant sits at 6.3% more in rural areas than in urban locations (£202 vs £190 per week). The price differential is being put down to supply and demand, with rural families having few available nurseries within their local area. Nearly a third of rural parents (31%) have just one nursery or crèche in their local area.

I am not sure we have got this right. In Scandinavia very successful children don’t start school till 7! It seems to me to be about our culture of increasingly long working hours and the thin end of a long wedge which will sacrifice childcare at home to more “in work poverty”

Schools will be encouraged to take children as young as two to help solve the country’s child care crisis.

Liz Truss, the education minister, is writing to every council in England to suggest that school nurseries should extend their opening hours to allow parents to leave toddlers during the working day.

The Government is also introducing legislation to reduce red tape and make it easier for schools to open their doors to two-year-olds.

Ministers believe that opening up the system will help provide tens of thousands more child care places, which are urgently needed in many areas.

It will also enable mothers to go back into part-time work and help prevent children from disadvantaged backgrounds from slipping behind.

This piece outlines a speech by Elizabeth Truss (the Under Secretary of State for childcare at the Department for Education) at Policy Exchange this week. In her talk, Truss outlined her vision for early years childcare, including addressing what she believes is the under-qualification of the people who work with young children (calling upon nursery staff to achieve grades C or above in English and Mathematics, the introduction of graduate-level early years teachers) and increasing ratios for two-year-olds from four children per adult to six children per adult; and for ones-and-under to from three children per adult to four children per adult.

In rural areas finding decent childcare can be even more difficult than in towns and cities. Many rural settlements lack a nursery and have limited after-school clubs and parent-toddler groups. All of this highlights the importance of providing mobile and innovative childcare  for rural parents and carers. Will Truss’s proposals revive childcare? Will they make childcare more affordable and increase family living standards?

Elizabeth Truss speech can be found here

At the other end of the age spectrum a new childcare loan idea by a think tank has much to offer potentially to rural parents. Assuming the challenges of finding enough local childcare places can also be addressed. The article concerning this issue says:

Parents should be able to borrow money from the government to cover childcare costs to make it more financially viable for them to return to work, a thinktank has suggested.

The Social Market Foundation (SMF) has proposed a National Childcare Contribution Scheme which would allow parents to borrow up to £10,000 to pay for childcare, which they would then pay back through their wages in a system similar to student loans.

The SMF said the proposals, which were set out in a report called A Better Beginning: Easing the cost of childcare, would extend access to formal childcare to more children and families by allowing parents to spread the cost without creating additional costs for the government.

It argues that “high-quality formal childcare has a critical role to play in substantially improving the development of all children”, but says it is becoming increasingly difficult for those on low incomes to afford it.

“For many parents, mothers in particular, the cost of childcare is too high and often makes paid employment financially unviable,” the report said