Parents feel the heat as holiday childcare prices rise at well above the rate of inflation By Family

Family and childcare trust have published their findings on rising holiday care costs for children and that many are struggling to source places for the holiday period. Some parents call on family to assist whilst others may be able to have swap days with friends and share the child care. Those who do not have these options there is the nanny route to go down and if costs are a little high see if you can nanny share and this will help financially. Before taking on a nanny always check the individual has the qualifications that they claim, an up to date DBS and check-able references. for nanny shares it would be advisable to speak to a reputable nanny agency to help you with the pay advise, contracts and they will have checked the nanny on your behalf. For payroll use a reputable company such as way2paye website: www.way2paye.co.uk who will ensure that this is legally sorted for you. Many students who might be taking up teaching, midwifery or childcare at university or college are keen to work during the vacation period.

The article

Joshua Cottell

17 July 2018

Families across the country are preparing for one of the biggest annual pressures on their finances: the summer holiday. About twice as many children use school age childcare as nurseries – for the families of these children to be able to work over the holidays, they need access to affordable childcare. Done right, holiday childcare allows parents to work and gives children the opportunity to take part in positive activities that they might not otherwise access.

Our Holiday Childcare Survey 2018 finds that some parents are going to struggle to stay in work or make work pay over the holidays. The price of holiday childcare across the UK has increased by 4 per cent since last year – twice the rate of inflation. This means that the summer holiday comes with an average price tag of £800 for six weeks of holiday childcare per child.

For too many families, the help with holiday childcare costs available from Government is not working. Universal Credit helps low income families to pay for childcare, but it is often paid too late to help them manage the higher holiday costs – for school age children, childcare often costs twice as much in the holidays as it does in the school term. Universal Credit is paid in arrears, meaning that parents have to pay their holiday club bill before claiming back support, rather than getting the extra support when they actually need it.

On top of rising costs, many parents will struggle to find holiday childcare this year as just one in four local areas in England says that they have enough childcare for parents working full time, dropping to one in eight for children with disabilities. This year we have seen small improvements to the availability of childcare in England, but the proportion of local authorities reporting enough holiday childcare remains lower than in 2016.

In 2016 the Government introduced a policy in England that holds great potential to improve the availability of holiday childcare. It gives parents and childcare providers the ‘right to request’ that a local school opens up its facilities in the holidays to provide childcare or allow others to provide childcare over the break. However, the right to request is so far having only a negligible impact on childcare availability, with only four per cent of local authorities saying that it’s had any effect in their area – the same as last year. Two years on, it is no longer a case of waiting for the policy to ‘bed in’, but instead there is a need to review and rework the right to request in order for it to make an impact on filling the current gaps in supply of school age childcare.

Where holiday childcare is unavailable or too expensive, parents are left with few options. Many cannot call on family and friends to provide the childcare they need, and will not have enough annual leave to cover the long break. This means that some parents will really struggle to make work pay or even to stay in work this summer. We need urgent action to make sure that every family can find and afford the childcare they need.