CEY0367

Written evidence submitted by Puddle Ducks Nursery

We are writing to you with a plea for help, not just for our nursery, but for all nurseries nationwide.

The Budget over the past years have left nursery owners across the country dismayed, disgusted and downright disillusioned to find that, our sector is never valued!! We need you to start to see our sector as an important educational sector that needs to be valued for all we do so

We can pay our staff the wage they desserve. 

The bottom line is, without us, parents cannot work.  We are open for long hours, all year round, trying to provide flexibility to help parents as much as we can, we also provide care before and after school for primary school aged children, again, enabling their parents to work, safe in the knowledge that their children are being well looked after. We have many parents who work for the emergency services, doctors, nurses, fire fighters, paramedics, services which are needed more than ever right now. I heard a politician say on the radio over the years, “we will give the NHS anything they need.” This will be of no use if NHS workers have to stay at home to care for their children because all the nurseries have gone under. This is not just a problem for working parents. If the NHS are understaffed, it becomes EVERYONE’S problem.

And what about working parents outside of the NHS? Everyone needs to work to pay the bills. Parents need their children cared for. Nurseries close down and suddenly other businesses are struggling because their staff can’t come in as they have no childcare. This would have a huge impact on the economy and business, and again, would become EVERYONE’s problem, not just working parents. There isn’t much point in scrapping business rates for shops and cafes if they suddenly find themselves with no staff.

The childcare sector is already on its knees. The following are excerpts from statements written by other providers, which I am sharing for you with their permission:

Is the government really hoping that the sector will go bankrupt?

I really hope that you have sound reasons for your decisions and clear and transparent answers after this I know that the government is spending unprecedented amounts on early years as that is the stock standard reply given by government. It is, however, not enough. An increase of 8p an hour in 2020 was the new amount per child. What on earth do you expect us to do with that? On top of the previous 13p in thirteen years was completely laughable.”

The 30 hours funding already brought the death  to hundreds of nurseries across the country. We want to do everything we can to help our local community, and therefore offer unlimited 30 hour funding, plus funding for eligible two year old’s. However, through doing this, we lose out hugely, as we receive only just over half of our hourly rate on every hour we give to funded children, which in our case is about 70% of our children. We are, rightly, expected to have qualified staff. However, this costs money, both in the qualification itself and by the salary we pay. All staff need ongoing training and CPD, plus mandatory training in safeguarding and food hygiene. There is no free training available anymore, so who pays for it? We do. And then these staff require more money as they are gaining more qualifications but no not in our sector we cannot afford to pay more this is why we are loose staff.

Childcare historically has always been chronically underpaid. I do not understand this, as are we not responsible for every parent’s most treasured thing? Could they go to work without us? Could they go to work happily if they didn’t think their child was looked after by well qualified and dedicated staff? I think not. Added to this, youngsters are aware how terribly childcare practitioners are paid, so fewer and fewer people are coming into the profession, leading to a deepening employment crisis. Qualified and passionate staff are becoming much harder to find. I am lucky to have such an amazing team, but my goodness, it was hard to find them all.

I ensure we look after our staff as well as we possibly can economically. However we are all on national living   wage, though with all the costs suffered by the sector, it is hard to pay much above. Also, obviously, the higher a staff member is qualified, the more they would like to be  paid. However, with the huge minimum wage rise coming our way in April, our salary bill is going to rise significantly, with everyone having to rise proportionally. I do not begrudge my staff this one little bit, they deserve every penny, I would pay them double if I could. But with the ridiculously low rise in funding rates, it doesn’t even begin to cover this. It’s an insult to the sector.

Our stress is added to by all the government posters shouting out “Get your free childcare!!!” It is not free. It is a supplement. We are the ones on the front line then dealing with parents who don’t see why they should have to pay anything towards their childcare, after all, isn’t it meant to be free?!?!? The funding pays towards early years education only ie. staff with childcare qualifications. Not rent, food, materials, resources, electricity, cleaning, further training, insurance,………….. and certainly not business rates. why are we paying Business rates on the number of children we are registered for, just because this is the number of children, this dose not mean we have this amount of children for instance a setting who pays £2500 for business rates a small setting now in some arears will be paying for children between £300 and £500 per child that can no cost the setting £15600 or £26000 tell me how is this right, along with funding not going up.

It dose not cover all half the costs to run a childcare setting and we are not aloud to ask parents to pay anything towards it, parents can bring their own things in, well how would you feel if I said to you, No I will bring your pen in and paper, no don’t print that off I will do that, No I will bring in food for snack ( chocolate) they don’t eat fruit No it is just ridiculous in lock down funding covered staff costs now it covers everything were is the logic please who is sorting this out.

The extra paper work we now do in our own time completing EHCP and referrals to pediatrician, speech and language. Our role has changed so much in the 25 years I have been in this sector. Work load has trebled but money has stayed the same. Please can you look at all we do how important our sector was during Covid 19 and how we stayed open but what benefits did we get for this who shouted out for us, but if you sit back without our sector people could not go to work even people working from home found it hard to work with their children at home and begged for us to have them in, pleases take the time to see how important this sector is to keep our economy going if we just all closed what would people do !!!

There was talk of reducing the amount of corporation tax we pay. Then the Budget rolls around and, oops, no, sorry, no help there either.

The mandatory Workplace Pensions…… again, I’m glad that my staff have access to this and willingly pay into it for them. But there are plenty of nurseries who simply can’t afford to.

why are we paying Business rates on the number of children we are registered for, just because this is the number of children, this does not mean we have this amount of children for instance a setting who pays £2500 for business rates a small setting now in some arears will be paying for children between £300 and £500 per child that can no cost the setting £15600 or £26000 tell me how is this right, along with funding not going up.

January 2023