The Effect of the Change to Childcare Funding in the UK

Since September 2017, working parents of three and four year olds in England have been entitled to 30 hours of free childcare for 38 weeks a year for their local nursery or pre-school. This represented a doubling of the current entitlement and has been made available to families where both parents earn at least the equivalent of 16 hours per week at the National Minimum Wage, but below £100,000. Those parents who do meet the requirements of these employment thresholds continued to be entitled to 15 hours of childcare per week. This was in response to reports that parents in Britain were using more of their salary to pay for childcare – more than a quarter (26.6%) – than most other European countries according to the Organisation of Economic and Cooperation and Development (OECD) data.

The change in policy of childcare was considered to be one of the most significant changes to childcare in recent years. However, the effect upon the early years and children’s nurseries has not been overly positive. Since the policy was introduced, there have been more than 1,000 nurseries and childcare providers going out of business since the Conservative Government was elected back into power in 2015.

Official Ofsted figures have shown that there has been a net loss of 1,146 nurseries and childminders from the Early Years Register since 2015. In total, over 15,000 childcare providers have had to leave the register, while only 14,142 have joined; four-fifths (81%) of those nurseries who had to leave the register were rated either good or outstanding by their most recent Ofsted inspections.

This unprecedented decrease in the number of quality early years and children’s nurseries is evidently a sign of crisis within the sector. A lack of pre-emptive measures has led to establishments of a high calibre having to be closed on a permanent basis, which has had repercussions for working parents who may have been reliant on that particular nursery to ensure that they could maintain full-time employment, while ensuring that their child was being prepared for entering the world of education.

While the notion of offering quality funded childcare should be increasingly applauded, it is becoming increasingly evident that there has been a lack of funding available to ensure that the emphasis is focussed upon quality as opposed to offering an extensive number of hours.

Previous studies have indicated that the quality of childcare during pre-school years has a direct effect upon one’s GCSE performance in the latter years of education; Government should seek to ensure that as many Outstanding nurseries are able to stay open and pay the increased staffing costs, which inevitably come with hiring staff of an increased calibre. It is imperative that access to quality childcare is not reserved for the wealthy and should be open to middle earners. The development of the nation’s future generations is not an area that should be allowed to remain underfunded and neglected.