Nurseries charging extra for nappies or food to raise cash for a free childcare rollout have been warned that costs must be “optional”.
Parents whose children are between nine months and two years old will have access to 15 hours of free childcare from Monday, under a plan introduced by the Tories. But early years campaigners have warned that the places aren’t free as nurseries are having to charge extra for nappies, lunches or outings because of shortfalls in funding.
Fears have also been raised that families won’t be able to get their first choice nursery as long waiting lists and few available places put the childcare expansion plans at risk. MPs sounded the alarm when the previous Conservative government announced the plan, warning that free childcare hours would not solve deep-rooted problems facing nurseries and parents.
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Chief executive officer of the Early Years Alliance Neil Leitch said the places weren’t “free” as providers were having to make up the shortfall. “They’re having to charge for extras, for lunches that they wouldn’t normally charge for in terms of fees,” he told Sky News.
“They’re having to charge for outings, they’re having to charge for nappies, they are having to charge parents who do not qualify for the so-called free entitlement at a higher rate to cross the shortfall.”
Education minister Baroness Jacqui Smith admitted providers are facing “a real challenge” in delivering the rollout. But she reassured parents: “What we’ve been very clear about in our guidance is where providers feel that they they need to charge for food, for example, or for nappies within the Government-funded childcare hours, that has to be something that is optional, so parents need to be able to provide their own nappies or provide the lunch themselves.”
She continued: “But I do take the point that there is a real challenge for early years providers in delivering this big ramping up of provision.”
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has equally warned the rollout “will not be plain sailing” amid staffing and funding issues across the childcare sector. “This inherited plan comes with significant delivery challenges,” she said. “I must warn that for some parents it will not be plain sailing, and while I am excited to see children starting nursery for the first time, or parents being able to increase their working hours, the work for government starts now.”
Ms Phillipson said early years support is her “number one priority” in Government, but her department claimed it must find around 85,000 more childcare places by September 2025 compared with 2023, to expand its free childcare offer. Around 20 areas need double the increase in childcare hours than the national average, and “a handful of further areas” need three times the increase. “Work is under way with local authorities to make sure the right local plans are in place to deliver for parents and families,” a Whitehall source said.
The Government will fund 15 hours per week of free childcare for eligible working parents whose children are between nine months and two years old from Monday September 2, in addition to an existing similar offer to parents of two-year-olds and 30 hours of free childcare already offered to parents of children aged three and four. From September 2025, the Department for Education has committed to funding 30 hours of free childcare for most working parents of children between nine months and school age, in line with commitments made by the former Conservative administration.