Rise and Rise Again in Scottish

Scottish parents now pay an average of £111 per calendar week, or about £5,800 per year, for merely a part time plant nursery place, according to new enquiry from Coram Family and Childcare. This is lower than the British average of £127 per calendar week.

The Childcare Survey 2019 – the 19th annual survey – finds prices accept risen by two per cent in the terminal year.

Fifty-fifty if they can afford information technology, many parents may struggle to detect the childcare they demand. While the vast bulk of local areas take plenty places for the funded early on learning and childcare entitlement for two, three and four years olds, they did non have the information near other childcare for working parents. Only one in six Scottish local authorities reported that they had enough childcare right beyond the local surface area for parents working full fourth dimension.

Other findings on Scottish childcare prices include:

• A part fourth dimension identify with a childminder for a child nether two costs an average of £105 per calendar week
• A role time place in plant nursery for a 3 or four year old costs an average of £44 – this is considerably lower than for younger children because all three and four twelvemonth olds are entitled to 600 hours per year of funded childcare
• Five days a week in an after school club costs an average of £54 per calendar week

Nigh parents will be able to get some support with paying for their childcare, including through new investment currently being introduced. While many families welcome this support with childcare costs, others may be missing out on the help that'due south available because the system is so circuitous.

Some Regime support has failed to keep up with childcare price aggrandizement: in 94 per cent of local authorities across Great britain, a full time nursery place for a child nether two is now more expensive than the maximum costs supported under Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit. Families in these areas will detect that they may cease up worse off working, or working more than hours.

Megan Jarvie, Head of Coram Family and Childcare, said:

"Childcare is every fleck as vital as schools, healthcare or transport: it supports parents to piece of work, provides our economy with a reliable workforce and boosts children's outcomes. But too many parents remain locked out of work by loftier childcare costs and depression availability, and besides many children miss out on high quality childcare, and the benefits to their life-chances that come with it.

"Recent Regime investment is welcome, only for many parents, making work pay is still an uphill struggle. The Government needs to streamline the current maze of childcare support schemes so that families tin can empathise what they are entitled to and access the childcare they need. We need a unproblematic and responsive childcare system that makes sure every parent is better off working and childcare quality is loftier enough to boost children'south outcomes throughout life."

Alongside Coram Family and Childcare's call for ambitious childcare reform, the Childcare Survey 2019 sets out several curt term actions Government can accept to make information technology easier for parents to find and beget childcare:

• Increase the maximum amount of childcare costs that are supported past Universal Credit in order to make certain parents are better off for every extra hour worked, and switch to upfront payments so that parents can beget to move into work.
• Provide start up grants and responsive funding for childcare providers to increase the availability of childcare places.
• Consider how electric current spend on childcare could be reallocated to better meet the needs of disadvantaged and low income children, including current underspend of the Tax Free Childcare budget.

-ENDS-

2. Parents can get support with their childcare costs throughout Britain through Working Tax Credits, Universal Credit, Childcare Vouchers and Tax Free Childcare. England, Scotland and Wales as well each accept several different schemes offering free childcare to some 2, three and 4 year olds. See the full report for further information.
3. All three and four yr olds in Scotland are currently entitled to 600 hours per yr of funded early learning and childcare. By 2020, this will be increased to 1140 hours. This extended entitlement is currently being piloted in some areas of Scotland.
4. Different in England and Wales, Scottish local authorities do not have duty to assemble information on local sufficiency of childcare.

About Coram Family unit and Childcare
Coram Family and Childcare works to brand the UK a better place for families by bringing together what we acquire from our on the basis parent-led programmes and our research to campaign for solutions that parents want and demand. Nosotros focus on childcare and early years to make a difference to families' lives at present and in the long term. Earlier Baronial 2018, we were known as the Family and Childcare Trust.

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Source: https://www.familyandchildcaretrust.org/scottish-families-face-rising-tide-childcare-costs-prices-rise-again

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