The council should be pushed to pay the going rate for nursery care to ensure all children benefit from these free hours
And not just those with working parents

I spoke to the Lead member on the Council about this topic yesterday.

As such I understand that the officers are on the case and are pushing to ensure that Wandsworth is a special case in allowing parents to provide top up amounts to nurseries and other PVIs because of the significant amount of working parents we have in the borough.

As a Prospective Candidate to be MP for Tooting, where we have so many young families (myself included), I would work hard alongside the Council to ensure that Wandsworth does achieve this special status such that local parents can benefit from 30 hours free childcare (or close to that level). Clearly it is a top prioirity for our area and will help many Mums and Dads return to work, or work additional hours, which in turn benefits our local economy.

Regards,

Dan Watkins
Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Tooting
www.danwatkins.org.uk

The government likes to claim that they offer free 15 hours childcare to eligible two-year olds, and free 15 hours to ALL three year-olds, and free 30 hours to eligible three-year olds - so it looks good on paper for them. But the reality on the ground is a totally different story. I recently received funding for my two-year old and am finding it just about impossible to find her a space anywhere as child minders can't afford the pay cut (it's crazy that the government just expects them to take the hit), and even private nurseries can't afford it. And given how oversubscribed and struggling to cope nurseries already are, I just don't see how anywhere is going to be offer 30 hours. It's a complete mess.

This has been the case for years (I remember discussing it 5/6 years ago), one local nursery closed because of it but the others worked around it. They can charge for extras like music & dance classes/teachers kids have at nursery. So you can have your 15 hours free and then pay for the 'extras' nurseries provide. It would be much better if they just allowed straight forward top ups, although I understand why it's not, it doesn't work in practice.

It's not confusion petal. We've had a message from my child's pre school saying that if the new arrangements go ahead as currently proposed, they will have to withdraw from the govt scheme, i.e. not offer any subsidy to parents. It says many childcare providers in wandsworth are in a similar position and they are meeting with the authorities to try to resolve it.

Is yours a state nursery? They may be in a different position?

petal wrote:Not sure what this post is on about..
The government offers free 15 hours according to a finding rate. Councils all over England have different rates based on a formula. Wandsworth currently offer about £5 per hour. You can't get back more of you are ( most likely charged more per hour.
The maximum you can get is 15 hours per week up for 38 weeks per year.

According to our nursery and the Council who I spoke to yesterday you will no longer get anything at all in Wandsworth (so not even initial 15 hours which you can currently receive regardless of income or nursery top up fees) as of new academic year unless they can get the Government to sort out wording (which is all on hold until after the election) and the Council is consulting lawyers to try and get it sorted....they are hopeful though...

I did speak to the Council yesterday who seemed quite confident it would be sorted in time for Sep but we'"" see!!

I recently found out about this and am horrified that this isn't more widely known and a solution put in place. I've written to both the labour and conservative candidates for tooting - neither have responded.

I am watching this thread with a keen interest aswell. I didn't know anything about this!

I thought all nurseries would offer the 30 hours. So realistically the demand will increase as the availability of spaces decreases.

All the nurseries that I know of have always treated the government funding as a contribution to their cost, and charged a top-up.

The nursery that my youngest currently attends is a charity, and charges minimal top-ups (£30 per week). The new restriction on top-up fees is really hitting them hard, as they do not offer additional hours that they can charge parents for.

They have now consulted with parents whether we would be willing to make a weekly charitable donation, but of course this is not enforceable and therefore leaves them exposed to non-payment.

Basically, unless they can come up with a clever plan to charge parents without calling it a top-up fee they will be unable to continue offering good-value childcare of the kind the government is trying to encourage.

It seems a ridiculously short-sighted approach to me, and unless it is changed "free" childcare will not be available anymore. (Which may be the goal after all, as it will allow the government to claim that funding was available, but not used, so the scheme can be abolished.)

That's possible - though the legal position has been very clear for a good number of years. As such, it is not a new problem and it is one that nurseries in other areas which have not turned a blind eye have been struggling to deal with for some time. Individual nurseries will have decide what is financially viable for them.

TJ74 wrote:Although, looking at the proposals, it is possible for nurseries to opt out of the 30 hours and just keep offering the 15 hours that they do already...

From what I gather what has changed is that where before Wandsworth Council turned a blind eye to nurseries topping up they are now saying that it can no longer happen so they wouldn't be able to just do the 15 hours even if they opted out of the 30 hours but let me know if you know otherwise!

Although, looking at the proposals, it is possible for nurseries to opt out of the 30 hours and just keep offering the 15 hours that they do already...

It has always been the case that the 15 hours must be free and so 'top ups' are not allowed. There have been many campaigns about this by nurseries over the years. I think what might have changed the position is the plan to expand the number of free hours to 30. Before nurseries could provide the free 15 hours and try and recoup some of the difference between what the government pays and the real cost of providing nursery education by charging more for the hours that a child attends above the free 15. That is permitted as it is not a 'top up' (as people could still just have their 15 free hours if they wished). If nurseries were to offer the 30 hours, then obviously they would no longer be able to do this. It may be, therefore, that some nurseries will have decided to opt out offering funded places altogether.

I am very interested to hear this too (and concerned!) as I will have a child due to start nursery in Sept and was hoping for the help of the government funding. I thought there had been proposals to raise the rate paid to nurseries to make it more realistic (although maybe not realistic enough for London prices?). And, given that the state nursery school places are very limited already and the hours are going to increase to up to 30 per child I can't see how they can anywhere meet demand for free childcare places without private nurseries offering these places. So basically the 'free' nursery provision where it is available is going to be heavily over subscribed and hence only offered to a small minority!

I wonder how the private nurseries will be affected? I expect the really popular ones will still fill their places but some others may go out of business.