Nursery World - Nursery Management: Business

How is the impact of the 30 hours, National Living Wage and other increased business costs going to be felt across the sector? Hannah Crown reports

Childcare will become more expensive, less flexible and less accessible as a direct impact of the 30 hours, our exclusive survey shows.

Four in five of 523 respondents say the Government’s plan to extend the 15 funded hours, which comes alongside unprecedented increases in staffing bills, is likely to mean sacrifices to services elsewhere – or hikes in fees.

Of the 81 per cent who said they would be forced to cut or change services, fee increases were the most likely outcome (67 per cent of settings), while 56 per cent said their offer would be less flexible.

The Government’s flagship policy, to double the existing 15 hours of childcare offered to parents of three- and four-year-olds for 38 weeks of the year, is to come in in 2017. But the 30 hours scheme has been dogged by claims of underfunding, backed by reports from the Institute for Public Policy Research and the Pre-school Learning Alliance, and lack of certainty about what it is trying to achieve, supported by reports from the Institute of Fiscal Studies and National Audit Office (NAO).

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