How many hours extra does having 30 hours of free childcare create for working parents? It is the million dollar question and, in Staffordshire, the pilot was set up to find out. ‘We wanted to work with employers to find out if childcare accessibility could impact on working patterns, potentially allowing parents to take up additional hours or return to work,’ says Laura Ballinger, early implementer co-ordinator at Staffordshire Council. In an effort to make sure they didn’t over-promise and under-deliver, the first move was to contact the top 25 employers in the region to find out if they would be interested in taking part.
The council has now extended the offer to the top 50 local employers, and is working with smaller companies on an enterprise park to find out how the requirements of their staff might differ from those of larger firms.
Staffordshire used the same approach it takes to school place planning to gauge potential demand for places, but discovered that early years planning is a less exact science.
‘We estimated that around five to eight per cent of employees would have a three- or four-year-old, but in actuality it was more like one or two per cent,’ says Ms Ballinger. ‘With school planning we know exactly where families live, but we don’t know how many children employees of particular companies have.’ Some parents who have been working part-time have been able to increase their hours, while for others, who may have been working opposite shifts at the same employer in order to avoid paying for childcare, it has allowed a better quality of life. ‘Dad is doing the morning shift, mum drives up with the children, and they swap over in the carpark,’ says Ms Ballinger. ‘I witnessed this and was told that’s the norm.’
PROVIDERS’ SUPPORT
When employees sign up for the trial, the council will approach the provider or providers they are currently accessing to ask them if they are willing to take part. ‘We have not yet had a provider say no,’ says Ms Ballinger. More than 130 providers are on board in total, with 38 per cent of families accessing the 30 hours across more than one provider. ‘This is often the same site, but it may be a maintained nursery in the morning and a voluntary-run setting in the afternoon, for example,’ says Ms Ballinger. Three-quarters of parents have taken up places at a private day nursery, while 16 per cent have opted for a voluntary-run setting.
Staffordshire has also extended the offer to parents with children at 17 providers that had previously expressed an interest in taking part. This has allowed the council to look at the impact on a setting when it has more than five eligible children attending, as with the employer-driven offer, places tend to be scattered across a large number of settings. ‘We gave the providers a week to identify eligible families, because we didn’t want families migrating from other childcare settings just in order to access the trial,’ says Ms Ballinger. A significant number of these families were already eligible for the trial, as parents worked for one of the employers involved, but they had not been aware of it previously.
‘One dad was working nights at the supermarket and his wife works during the day at the hospital,’ says Ms Ballinger. ‘When he comes back from work he looks after the children then has three hours sleep and goes back to work. When I explained about the 30 hours offer, he cried. These are the families we are passionate about working with, they are working so hard and this makes a real difference to their lives.’
The council has filled 350 places, and is holding some back for the spring and summer terms. Providers are being funded to deliver the 30 hours at a rate of £4 an hour, which they have accepted after some debate. ‘They wanted a higher rate, but they felt that because the £4 an hour was for all 30 hours, not just the additional 15, it would be alright,’ Ms Ballinger says.
The council realises that in the lead-up to the national roll-out in September, it will have to inform parents that they no longer need to work for one of the companies involved, so further communication will be necessary. It is working with the employers on developing a guidance sheet or toolkit to advise lower-income families on what they are entitled to and how they can find childcare. One employer has already incorporated information about the 30-hour offer into its recruitment pack.
CASE STUDY: FIRS DAY NURSERY, BURTON-ON-TRENT
The 30 funded hours trial is just the latest in a series of developments Firs Day Nursery has seen since it opened in 1989 with one child and three staff members. The 96-place private nursery, operating out of a converted Victorian house in Burton-on-Trent, currently hosts 13 funded children under the 30 hours trial.
‘The council approached us to let us know they had been successful in becoming an early implementer, and asked if we would like to be involved,’ says manager Jenny Cole.
‘We sent out a letter giving the criteria, including the fact that parents had to work for one of a number of specific companies, and were able to identify the parents who qualified.’
Parents have welcomed the scheme, and proved understanding that not everyone would be eligible. ‘Some got their hopes up, but we explained that this is the way it is being phased in and eventually more people will be eligible,’ says Ms Cole. ‘Parents have been able to do extra hours at work, and have brought their childcare bills down.’
Of the £4 rate, Ms Cole says, ‘It’s not great, is it? But it is what it is. It is difficult because we don’t know if other settings are going to be involved, and if we don’t offer the 30 hours, are we going to lose children to a setting that does?’
In order to make the funding rate work, Firs has decided to limit the offer to specific sessions between 9am and 3pm, charging parents for hours beyond those times. ‘There are a few different options for sessions, so we are quite flexible for different working hours, but parents can’t decide to start their funded hours at 7.30am, for example,’ she says. ‘Some parents have increased their sessions and are paying for hours on top of the funded hours. At the moment we only have 13 children so it is quite manageable, but I don’t know how it will work when more families are involved.’
DOUBLE TIME
James Hempsall, who has the support contract to aid delivery of the 30 hours, talks digital communications
Staffordshire is a diverse and extensive geographical area, which is comparatively huge in scale, and characterised by rural areas and urban pockets. Despite these challenges, it has frequently been at the top of the league tables for take-up of the two-year-old entitlement for the least advantaged.
Their plan was to find families eligible for the 30 hours by contacting their employers first. This was innovative – I have never heard of such a thing being done before – and was done because they rightly recognised that employers too have a stake in quality and reliable childcare when working parents need it.
Initially employers were the larger ones in the county such as Tesco and Amazon. The team informed them of the programme and asked them to share information, as an employment benefit, to raise awareness of the funding, and support parents to access additional childcare – potentially helping parents to increase or protect their working hours. This was a great strategy. Information was provided to HR teams, presentations were given, and information events delivered in staff rooms and canteens. This found many eligible parents.
Yet the team was focused on a need to fund as many children as possible within their target. The initial take-up was lower than initially expected, and a change of plan was needed. So small and medium-sized employers were also contacted – and it was found they had a more individualised knowledge of the circumstances of their parent employees. Providers were also included in the information-sharing strategy. They were informed about the funding and asked about where parents were employed. This ‘pincer’ movement reached parents from both angles and has reaped results.
I was in the Staffordshire offices when they learned they had exceeded their 70 per cent take-up target. It shows the value in working with employers (small, medium and large) and with providers so parents are both informed and supported to access the services available to them from their trusted employers or their trusted childcare and early years provider.