CEY0865
Windmill Hill City Farm is a charity based in south-central Bristol that has served its community for over 40 years. It runs a variety of facilities and services from a 4-acre site. Facilities include a café, rooms to hire, and an open farm visitor attraction. Services include those for education, health and social care and community development. It has an annual turnover of £2m and employs over 100 staff.
Part of its offer is a 94-place nursery catering for children aged 9 months to 5 years old. The nursery was established in its current form in 2004 and has a strong waiting list. As a charity, it takes an active part in the city’s ‘panel’ system taking families eligible for funding for 2-year-olds; as well as offering both free-to-parent and paid-by-parent places. Around one third of its income is derived from funded places.
The challenges facing the early years provision at Windmill Hill City Farm have been growing steadily greater over the past five or more years. They have reached a crescendo in the post-pandemic period with staff recruitment and retention difficulties, exacerbated by systemic underfunding and a dominant societal narrative that sees early-years provision primarily as ‘baby-sitting’ for working parents. This has prompted us into more active political engagement to address underlying issues in the sector – including this response to the call for evidence.
As a childcare provider, our main contact is with parents who can afford the provision rather than with those who cannot. We ran a survey of parents receiving 31 responses online. Their feedback indicates that even in this self-selected group only 13% earn enough to comfortably cover the costs. For 23% of respondents childcare costs more than working brings in. 65% indicated that childcare is ‘just about affordable’.
Comments included
“We can afford it if both of us work. We could not afford 2 children in care and the cost is more than our mortgage.”
“It's not more than I earn but I wouldn't call it affordable. We go without other things to afford childcare.”
“It’s unaffordable: with 2 kids we can’t afford to send the second without the first getting the free hours, so currently I stay at home to look after the second. Our eldest is in 2 days because that’s what we can afford.”
We know that people are waiting until the entitlement funding applies before going back to work because they can’t afford to do it before that.
Within our setting we have noticed a reduction in the number of children taking additional hours (those outside the free provision). Last year, the busiest mornings in the 8-9 am ‘breakfast’ hour had 19 children 3 days-a-week. We now have only one day with 9 children the peak. At the end of the day, the 5-6 pm ‘late pick up’ slot had 13 last year with 6 children now the peak. This trend hits our income, reducing our ability to recover our costs, as well as reducing the productivity of parents who are cutting down their work hours to reduce their costs.
We have also noticed an increase in the number of children bringing a packed lunch to the setting rather than taking a hot meal. This has a particular impact on children under the 2-year-old funded scheme (which doesn’t cover meal costs). Arguably, these are the children that most often need a cooked meal because they don’t get it at home.
Many parents are choosing to take holiday to coincide with training closures to reduce their exposure to ‘lost days’ and we have had a rise in complaints at having to pay for a place when a child is absent because of sickness indicating the additional strain that parents are feeling.
We have had staff who have left their job because childcare costs make it unviable to work and of candidates applying for positions on condition that we can provide discounted childcare for them (which we are unable to do). Though anecdotal, these incidences indicate that for lower-paid roles childcare is unaffordable.
When we questioned parents about the entitlement system 20% found the system complicated and baffling. 42% believed that they had a good understanding of what they were entitled to.
In our day-to-day interaction with parents we find considerable misunderstanding around 15 or 30 hours entitlement with many having the impression that all their childcare will be completely free with no restriction on when they can apply their entitlement. Most people have the impression that the 30 hour entitlement applies year-round (it is actually 24 hours per week for 47.5 weeks).
Part-time or lower paid parents most often need longer hours (to earn enough to live) but can’t afford to pay for the childcare to cover them (as extra hours are outside the entitlement). Their expectation is that they can get long free day, which isn’t the case.
Many of the most deprived children fall into a trap where when they are under 2 they get enhanced provision paid by the local authority. At 2 years this stops and they are moved to the 2-year-old funding that is a much less generous provision (no meals or extended hours included).
We asked specifically what would make the system easier. Responses were broadly:
65 of the 180 families registered used tax-free childcare in December 2022. Plus we still have about 6 families that use the old voucher schemes that are being phased out.
The system is seen as complicated with many parents unsure how to access it. Some parents (14% of respondents) are unaware of the system and it is unclear how it’s advertised or promoted.
There is a deep confusion about what purpose childcare subsidies serve. People are led to believe that the support is there to enable vulnerable families to access early years education for their children and to give children in deprived circumstances a better chance in life. The subsidy purpose is about enabling social justice and greater social mobility. Elements of the funding (eg that for 2-year-olds) seems to be geared to that end.
In reality, the system tends looks after the better-off working parents and does not address disadvantage. Its purpose is based in an economic model that enables parents to return to work and become more economically active. However, on this front it fails families on lower incomes, who need to work the longest hours to make ends meet and who are not served well by it.
Salary levels in the sector are acknowledged as poor, which hampers recruitment. In our setting we pay above the Real Living Wage in recognition of the work that our team undertakes and as a means of remaining competitive in recruitment and retention of staff. We remain understaffed despite this.
Salary levels are driven by the level of income that can be achieved in a highly-regulated industry. The floor area of the setting determines the number of children it is allowed to serve, which in turn determines the minimum number of staff. There is little scope for refining the business model, even if engagement with the ‘entitlement’ funding is limited.
Entitlement funding has remained static for years. The hourly rates that have been paid to us over the past 6 years for making the “free” provision to parents mirror directly the rates paid to Bristol City Council who are obliged to take out no more than 5% for administration of the funds.
Year start | Apr 17 | Apr 18 | Apr 19 | Apr 20 | Apr 21 | Apr 22 | Apr 23 |
Base rate per hr per child | £4.87 | £4.87 | £4.88 | £4.88 | £4.88 | £4.88 | 4.94 |
Even with the tiny rise due in April, the rates have increased by less than 1.5% in 7 years, representing a real-terms cut when inflation is taken into account. Given that staff costs account for over 85% of our total costs, a more realistic comparison would be to staff wages.
The Real Living Wage has increased by 29% over the same period
Year start | Apr 17 | Apr 18 | Apr 19 | Apr 20 | Apr 21 | Apr 22 | Apr 23 |
Real Living Wage | £8.45 | £8.75 | £9.00 | £9.30 | £9.50 | £9.90 | £10.90 |
This analysis assumes that the £4.93 rate in Apr 17 was a sufficient rate from which to start an analysis of current rates. This is a false assumption. The most telling comparison is to compare the ‘free’ rate against the rate charged to parents who are paying. This rate varies depending on the number and timing of sessions, but averages at around £8.50 per hour, implying a loss of £3.58 on every hour of ‘free’ entitlement taken.
The levels of respect and professional standing in the sector are low. There is little understanding in the general public that it requires a 2-year qualification to work as an Early Years Educator and pay rates are comparable to unqualified jobs in the retail sector. Few parents appreciate the value of education for children rather than a regarding the nursery as a childcare service. Staff commented that early years professions do not appear in the drop-down lists when they search for insurance quotes.
The language used to describe the sector often refers to childcare rather than education illustrating it is seen as babysitting and implying little professional input. Many parents choose to use their family for childcare to enable them to work re-enforcing the view that it is childcare rather than EY education that they value.
It feels that early years as a sector is rarely mentioned in discussion of education in Westminster and it is often forgotten or tagged onto initiatives as an afterthought.
Apprentices are significantly underpaid adding to the difficulty of recruiting at this career stage. A vicious circle has arisen of the sector being short staffed, leading to apprentices being used to fill gaps in qualified staffing rather than being additional to them. This detracts from the quality of supervision they receive and results in situations where they are undertaking the same job as other staff for half the wages. There are few resources to dedicate to training (insufficient time to support them) and insufficient capacity to support apprentices, means we have to set bar higher on who can be accepted. Anyone who needs additional support to achieve their qualification is left out. The quality of supervision from apprenticeship providers is low with too many students per tutor.
Stepping away from the proposal to increase the child-to-adult ratio for 2-year-old children was a very welcome move.
The shortage of staff is leading to more use of agency workers. The impact of this is greater disruption to children, additional risk due to agency staff being unfamiliar with the setting and its children, additional cost to the service, and additional pressure on permanent staff working with them. To add further to the problem there has been a shortage of agency staff too, leading to service closures.
The early years of childhood are when additional learning needs start to manifest and it is often the age when first diagnoses of conditions are made. The work of identifying SEND in young children has become considerably more difficult post-pandemic, give that many children exhibit a lack of development brought about by the impact of social restrictions in recent years.
The thresholds for children to qualify for specialist support have become much higher: previous referrals that would have qualified are now being refused. Waiting lists for SEN professional are leading to waits of 18 months to 2 years wait. When children do get referred, reports are slow in coming back with 6-8 week waits typical.
We have one child age 3-and-a-half who is under-developed in all areas of her learning. She is non-verbal, has experienced trauma in her life and is at the development level of a 1-year-old. She is due to start school in Sep 23. We made a referral via her health visitor to the autism hub and found an expected 18-month wait to get a referral. This means she is unlikely to be seen until she has already started school. We are currently constructing an EHCP application and have been told to expect a 20-week wait for a response.
On the positive side, Bristol’s Inclusion team is good and do offer good support. They are easy to contact and swift to respond. Unfortunately, our ability to engage at a strategic level with them is restricted by the short-staffing we’re experiencing. We are not resourced to attend cluster meetings where information sharing, training, and updates on legislation or new initiatives takes place.
Direct funding for family support (eg home visits by the setting) would enable closer ties to families that would directly support identification and mitigations for children with SEND.
Guidance is currently unclear on the expectations for children about to go to school. The revised EYFS has helped to reduce time taken to fill in transition forms (reduced from 45 mins each to around 15 mins each) however there is concern that there may be too little info on the form, and that direct contact with schools is difficult.
There is no standard system to prioritise needs level of children, it depends on practitioners to highlight issues and give their own assessment. Nor is there a system by which to pass on critical information. We currently have to print out and collate information into folder and take it by hand to the school child protection officer. A means of grading and sharing information on children would be helpful.
Responses to transition forms from schools is highly variable. In some cases we have had no response even when indicating a child has special needs to be considered.
Family hubs are far harder to access than the previous centres. Family support used to come to setting and undertake reviews of 2-year-olds that often surfaced useful disclosures that could then be addressed. This no longer happens.
There is now a much higher expectation on early years settings to pick up services where statutory services have closed. We have examples where a social care team has closed a child protection case and expected the nursery to pick up supporting the family with no additional training or resources provided.