Jeremy Hunt's 'botched' plan 'puts 180k childcare places under threat'
More than 180,000 childcare places could be under threat from more than 3,000 nursery closures due to the Tories’ “botched” childcare offer.
It comes as major nursery providers warned that they would be forced to go bust if the scheme is introduced in its current form, leaving disappointed parents unable to claim places for their children. Rishi Sunak insisted this week that the government's plan represents "the largest ever expansion of childcare in our country's history."
The new scheme, announced by Jeremy Hunt last year promised 15 hours of free term-time childcare for all children from nine months old, rising to 30 hours from two years old. Parents of three and four year olds have been able to claim 30 hours per week since 2017 - but nurseries have long complained the subsidy they receive doesn’t cover the real cost of providing childcare.
And while the funding offer for the new proposals is more reasonable, many nurseries fear inflation and rising wages will leave them once again covering a shortfall. “It won’t be a favourable rate for long,” Claire Richmond from Goslings Nursery in Coventry told the Mirror. “We know from experience that over time it slips. Three and four year old funding covers roughly 70% of the true costs of delivering the funded hours.”
She said the current cost of providing high quality pre-school education to children three and over is made up by charging parents of under-threes more. But she fears the increase of “free” hours will leave them with a fixed income, set by the local authority, rather than from fees which they control the level of.
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“Once we can no longer deliver it, we are essentially forced to go bust,” she said. “I feel really angry, At no point did the Conservative Government engage with the sector over their idea. It was a vote grabbing promise, written on the back of a fag packet.”
A survey by parents’ groups found more than three quarters of families had struggled to access the new entitlements - with a quarter saying the uncertainty left them unable to confirm working hours with their employer. And a separate survey by the Early Years Alliance found 24% of nurseries believe that it is likely or very like that their setting will close over the next 12 months.
Analysis by the Labour party found, if that happened across the country, more than 183,000 childcare places across 3,400 nurseries and pre-schools would be lost. Bridget Phillipson, Labour's Shadow Secretary of State for Education, said: "The Tories' childcare promise is in absolute tatters, with providers going out of business and parents being forced into debt to pay for childcare because of this botched pledge without a plan.”
Jacqueline Stratford-Parker and Victoria Startford, who run Puddle Ducks in Alvingham, Lincolnshire, said the funding provided by local councils won’t be enough for them to hire highly-qualified staff. As a setting we are having to add a cost to parents to deliver the quality of care that we have always given, as we will not be prepared to offer the kind of care that the money they provide would offer,” Ms Stratford-Parker said.
“That would be children on maxed ratio and a higher percentage of unqualified staff.”
Jo Morris of Playsteps Nursery in Swindon welcomed the government helping parents with the cost of childcare, but feared for the future. “The historic underfunding, the ongoing underfunding of the 2, 3 and 4 year old offer and the knowledge that the new rates for under 2's will not keep pace with the cost of providing these places means that we face making some very difficult financial decisions,” she said.
Claire Dimpl of Tadpoles Nursery Group in London branded the rollout a “farce”. She said: “Don’t make these passionate professional, teaching practitioners have to strive and struggle to provide exemplary care and education for the nation’s children, look at the bigger picture – fund these services properly. Deliver the funding to the schools in a way that works for their businesses and stop calling it ‘free’ it is not ‘free’. On no level is this free, call it what it is, plain and simply a ‘subsidy’. If the children of this nation are given what they need to celebrate them, ensure their lives are enriched at a young age – think of what the future of our nation could look like.”
Ms Phillipson said: “The Chancellor promised ‘the most significant improvements to childcare provision in a decade’ – now the Conservatives risk crashing the early years system just like they crashed the economy. Working parents must not pay the price of the Conservatives’ broken promises: Jeremy Hunt must now come to the House of Commons and guarantee that all parents will receive their entitlements on time and that no providers will be forced out of business.”
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