Islington parents are struggling with a lack of free care for their children as the cost of nurseries, crèches and childminders soars.
The government offers all three to four year olds in England 570 hours of free early education or childcare per year. This is usually claimed as 15 hours per week for 38 weeks of the year. An average working week for a full-time job in the UK is over 40 hours, so the amount of free childcare currently offered does not cover a parent going back into full-time work.
Childcare in London costs over a third more than the rest of the UK. A childminder for children aged two and up costs an average of £146.81, for a 25-hour week of care. This is compared to £103.48 across the rest of the UK.
In addition to this, many parents do not have access to the free childcare that is on offer. A survey by the Family and Childcare Trust shows that 90 per cent or less of Islington three-year-olds are in free early education. But the demand for pre-school childcare is outstripping supply. Although the government offers free early education for three- and four-year-olds, there are not enough places to go round. The cheapest nursery places in Islington cost around £160 a week, according to MP Emily Thornberry. By way of comparison, a week’s full-time pay on minimum wage is just £234.50.
And costs for children under the age of three are even steeper. The Trust currently estimates the average annual cost of a part-time London nursery place for a child under two at £8,302, but this is set to rise to over £10,000 by 2020.
Father-of-three Mandeep Singh, 34, said his wife, Hiba, 29, had to quit her job as a teaching assistant to stay at home with the children. “Our income just isn’t big enough to pay through the roof for someone to look after the kids,” said the shopkeeper, who lives on Caledonian Road. “Hiba does enjoy being at home with them but she misses working and doesn’t know when she will be able to go back.”
The council will only reimburse parents for childcare costs if the care is by a registered childminder, but there aren’t enough free nursery slots to go around. The borough has less than 10 childminders per 1,000 children aged below five. Parents are being forced to stay out of work, depend on relatives, or fork out money for childcare they cannot afford.
Ex-councillor Barbara Sidnell, of Finsbury Park, provides care for her grandchild while her daughter works. She said that her daughter Kyra had been forced move back in with her as a result. Kyra, 30, is a chef, so she has to work unsociable hours.
She told Islington Now: “If my daughter wasn’t living with me there would be no way she could work. Free childcare doesn’t cover the hours you need to work [full-time], and you can’t even claim for it if grandparents and friends help out.
“It’s a vicious cycle. You can’t get a childminder and you can’t claim for free childcare if you don’t have one. It means somebody has to miss work. The system just doesn’t work.”
In England, 59 local authorities reported that they do not have enough free early education places for three and four year olds this year, compared with 23 local authorities in 2015.
Picture: commons.wikipedia.org
Actually, unlike what’s implied in the article above , yes, a parent can return to work, because there are usually two parents, so one can be in paid work whilst the other one provides care – it’s called invisible care work and it’s worth £343 billion to the economy according to ONS. The economy can’t function without the men and women who are busy with family care – for the young, elderly, vulnerable and sick, which is part of the family life cycle. We all need to receive or give care at some point – the human condition depends on caregiving.
But it’s difficult for too many families as so few people can manage on just one salary – but that’s not the fault of childcare, rather it’s the responsibility of Govt to manage the economy in such a way that housing /rent remains affordable on average household incomes.
It’s like saying that we want our energy bills paid for – or our food bills – would we expect other taxpayers to cover that?!!
What we need is fairer family taxation and child allowances to compensate and recognise the loss of income from earned work when families are busy caring for dependents. To pay grandparents would not make sense unless mothers (or fathers) themselves can access the same ‘allowance’.
This govt is only interested in taxpayers and is quite happy to see grandparents caring whilst mothers return to work as they’re keen on productivity that counts in GDP, but many second earners in work don’t earn enough to even pay tax!
We’re selling a very narrow version of so-called ‘equality’ to women based on a lie (based on equality linked only to the workplace instead of ‘real’ human equality where everyone is respected for the different roles the play in life). Caregivers are ALREADY equal because caregiving is equally important work, but the problem is SYSTEMS that devalue and discriminate against caregiving.
And what exactly do childcare providers get paid?
THey are also discriminated against with ridiculously low pay.
Far from making childcare bills ‘cheaper’ for parents. we need to pay practitioners a decent wage so that they too can afford to raise their own families and put food on their children’s plates!
Agree the system makes no sense – but not for the reasons outlined in this article.