The cost of childcare in England has rocketed to the point where parents are spending up to 35 per cent of their weekly income on nursery or childminding fees.

Ha Ha Inflation rates are not what they seem! Have you seen the News? It has been getting worse for months, and that is just the tip of the crunchberg! Childcare sector is trying to bring employees pay in line with the rest of you! Undervalued and underpaid, it will get worse for working parents,but they choose to run their life in that manner. Childcarers are as precious as the children they care for - value us, we have rights too. In some cases staff are expected to work for a minimum wage - why? Because parents do not want to pay - they would rather have their kids turned out in flash clothes and have the latest technical gear! They only care when something goes tragically wrong. Professional status - watch the fees rise!!! EYFS in out of school clubs - that will put the fees up further. http://openeyecampaign.wordpress.com So many initiatives in the sector - who should pay?

I'm a registered childminder and I haven't increased my daily fees in three years! One parent still pays the same daily rate as she did 8 years ago. What about my pay keeping up with inflation? Most parents know nothing about EYFS and practitioners still don't know what the implications are. Are parents going to pay us what we need to impliment this curriculum? I don't think so!!

maureen newland:

Ha Ha Inflation rates are not what they seem! Have you seen the News? It has been getting worse for months, and that is just the tip of the crunchberg! Childcare sector is trying to bring employees pay in line with the rest of you! Undervalued and underpaid, it will get worse for working parents,but they choose to run their life in that manner. Childcarers are as precious as the children they care for - value us, we have rights too. In some cases staff are expected to work for a minimum wage - why? Because parents do not want to pay - they would rather have their kids turned out in flash clothes and have the latest technical gear! They only care when something goes tragically wrong. Professional status - watch the fees rise!!! EYFS in out of school clubs - that will put the fees up further. http://openeyecampaign.wordpress.com So many initiatives in the sector - who should pay?

What a nice friendly attitude you have to parents!?! I don't decide the salaries of the staff at the nursery my children attend - they have a committee, they undertake their own fundraising and I imagine they make the same decisions any business has to make including how much they can afford to pay their staff. At no point have I ever refused to pay higher fees or ever been presented with that option in order to keep the staff on low pay! 

I can also assure you that I care for my children far beyond a concern for something going tragically wrong and frankly I think you should have a lot more respect for ordinary people who do care for their children but also have to pay the bills - direct your bitterness at the people who employ you.

Thanks Mike

I was not aiming my comments at you personally. I am NOT bitter I am concerned :)

It is the situation caused by this Government I am frightened by.

I really do have an extremely professional & friendly attitude to parents and all human beings, but the sector are being taken for a ride again.

Child carers have right to a decent living, as does Carolyn;

"I'm a registered childminder and I haven't increased my daily fees in three years! One parent still pays the same daily rate as she did 8 years ago. What about my pay keeping up with inflation? Most parents know nothing about EYFS and practitioners still don't know what the implications are. Are parents going to pay us what we need to impliment this curriculum? I don't think so!!"

Professional status  - on low wages ? Now let me see ....... oh yes Gordon Brown has very big pockets - tax us more and we can pay for it ourselves. Cynical, I know, but 10p band affects low paid workers!

I also had two children in Nursery in Cambridge - before vouchers, tax credit, childcare credit and had no help whatsoever with my choice of childcare cost - I too got on with it just to exist! Times have changed and regulations have been piled on - which is a good thing in the long term.

As parents we all have a choice - child care providers have a choice - but settings seem to have no choice about what is being prescribed to them in the form of never ending hoops to jump through - National Standards, QA, Local Agreements, EYFS, Designated Person Training, Refreshers - it is all good but small independent settings surely cannot sustain this, yes local authorities provide some funds -  but who should pay? Taxpayers pay for schools to educate, child care is not school - just where will this EYFS end? Up to age 6?

If I worked full time training would be in the day during office hours. I work part time to care for my family - my choice - my choice also to take a part time job in child care. Not my choice to be gadding off everywhere doing so much training - especially when I spent two years doing a NVQ L3 which now, three years on, seems worthless. Not a settings choice to have visits out of hours from local government officers, which then means paying more and more administration costs. voluntary Management Committe Members also work full time ( true for preschools too).

Wages will always be the biggest outlay for childcare - some parents pay £5 - £6 per hour for an unqualified baby sitter in their own home in the evening, so please accept that a club, nursery, creche, preschool, MUST CHARGE MORE per hour. Some settings session fees broken down to hourly rates amount to far less than a baby sitting rate.

We have so far managed to maintain a very low charge for Out Of School Care because overheads were relatively low - but - increased professional status must mean higher bills for end users - parents -  unless child care is allocated government funding across the board and not just for training, especially if expectedto go on to degree level - investing in people?

Something else which is evident is that more and more families have a parent working from home, working flexi hours, shifts etc.. and so Out of School settings are losing full time, every day bookings.The numbers of ad hoc, casual bookings has greatly increased - but where is the security and predictability, being able to plan ahead is difficult.

I am a registered childminder and my rates have been the same for the past 2 years, the trend I have seen lately is that most people applying for a space with me are single parents who get help from tax credits to pay for their childcare, they get up to 80% paid to them for childcare if their earnings fall below a certain level, families with more than one parent working usually have to find the childcare costs for themselves out of their wages.

Good  quality childcare is worth paying for as your children are the most precious things to you, beware though that the government plans to take away your choice of what your child does at the childminders or their nursery by implementing the EYFS. The EYFS as a framework is a good idea but it is to be passed as statutary law, meaning that all childcare providers will have to implement all of the EYFS.

Also fees for OFSTED registration are going up as well as the annual rises in insurances such as public liability insurance, vehicle insurance etc, all of these things are bound to impact on the cost of childcare and that is not even mentioning the numerous short courses that we have to attend where we are just told what we already know and learned through our qualifications and have to find time out of our already very busy lives to attend.

No point in subsidising out of school care. We need to focus on parents being wth their children and able to provide out of school care. A lot of parents would like to work part time but companies don't allow this. Moneys need to be provided to places of employment to support them when parents are absent or choose to go part-time and not for private childcare when children go into GROUP care as early as three months old. Sally Kelly B'ED