Free childcare for working parents will be expanded to cover all children under five by September 2025 to help parent get back to work in the UK.
In a move to get more parents back to work, the government included free childcare to allow 60,000 more parents to enter the workforce with the purpose of boosting economic growth.
Childcare in the UK is among the most expensive in the world and the government has been under pressure to provide more help for parents.
1.3 million people in the UK were unemployed in December 2022.
The extension of free childcare has been lobbied for by business group the CBI, which calculates that while it will cost several billion pounds, it could raise up to £10bn in further revenue by increasing the number of parents able to work.
The new help for parents will be introduced in stages.
1.
Eligible working parents of two-year-olds will get 15 hours of free childcare per week from April 2024
2.
Children between nine months and two years old will get 15 hours of free childcare from September 2024
3.
All eligible under-5s will get 30 hours of free childcare from September 2025
However, Paul Johnson, director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS), doubted it would make “a big difference”.
“The childcare package is expected to only get a few tens of thousands more mothers, mostly, back into work,” he told the BBC.
“We know a lot of people don’t even take up what they’re entitled to among the three and four-year-olds.”
The government will also introduce changes to the staff-to-child ratios – moving from one carer for every four children to 1:5 to align with Scotland.
Supporters of the idea say it could help cut costs for parents. However, the Early Years Alliance, which represents around 14,000 childcare providers in England, said relaxing ratios was a “shameful decision” which risked compromising safety and quality of care, as well as putting more pressure on the workforce during “a severe staffing crisis”.
The organisation’s chief executive, Neil Leitch, also raised concerns about whether there would be enough childcare places to meet increased demand.
Leitch said: “At a time when settings are closing at record levels and early educators are leaving the sector in their droves, unless the proper infrastructure is put in place by the time the extended offers are rolled out, many parents of younger children expecting funded places to be readily available to them are likely to be left sorely disappointed.”
(Source: BBC)
