A new survey reveals that nearly 50% of first-time mums either don’t know that the government offers financial help with childcare. The survey conducted by a Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission questioned 1,000 parents who reported as the main carer of 0- to 3-year-olds in England.
Some know there is help, but don’t know how to get it or how much it would save them. It also revealed that 57% of working-class parents and 40% of middle-class parents would have liked to work more hours, but their perception of the cost of childcare was a deterrent.
Other findings included large differences by social group in the proportion of parents attending antenatal classes prior to the birth of their first child. 27% of all parents did not attend any antenatal classes, but this rises to 37% for working-class parents and 44% for lone parents. Working-class parents are also considerably more likely to experience isolation in the first year of their child’s life. 16% of working-class parents said that they had no contact at all with parents with children of a similar age to their own, compared to 9% of middle-class parents.
By 2020 the government will be ploughing a generous £6 billion into childcare support – which for the poorest working parents could equate to 85% or more of total costs. There are high take-up rates of free childcare for 3- and 4-year-olds but too many parents of younger children are finding it too difficult to work out what help they are entitled to, and the extent to which that help will reduce the high headline costs of local childcare provision.
A recent survey from the Family and Childcare Trust cited the cost of a full-time nursery place for a baby or toddler under age 2 at over £300 a week in London and over £210 a week in the rest of England.
The commission has shown that, from 2017, there will be 6 different funding mechanisms by which parents can receive help with childcare. All 6 have different objectives, different eligibility criterion, and different ways of getting to parents; including through the tax system, the benefits system, and via funding that goes direct from government to nurseries and childminders. These include:
- the childcare element of Working Tax Credit which will become part of Universal Credit
- childcare vouchers (which will close to new entrants from 2017)
- a new “Tax Free” childcare system which will launch in 2017
- 15 hours of free childcare for all 3- and 4-year-olds
- 15 hours of free childcare for disadvantaged 2-year-olds
- an additional 15 hours of free childcare for 3- and 4-year-olds with working parents which will be tested in some local authorities from autumn 2016 and be available to all eligible parents the following year
Alan Milburn, Chair of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission said: £6 billion of public investment in childcare should be a poverty-busting, work-enhancing policy. But it is not delivering the maximum bang for the buck.
Hard-pressed parents, at one of the most stressful times of their life, are struggling to make sense of the childcare funding maze. Too many simply cannot work out what help is available.
The way childcare is being funded is a confusion piled on a muddle piled on a mess. Without urgent simplification there is a real risk that the government’s noble aims to close the gender pay gap and boost maternal employment will simply not be realised.
