Chancellor Alastair Darling said, ‘We are proud of our achievements in helping families and tackling child poverty. Pre-school children are benefitting from a massive expansion in childcare places and I now want to do more to help parents of one and two year olds, by increasing child tax credits by £4 from 2010.’
The Chancellor reassured families that child tax credits will be available for all children who need it, whether parents are married, living together or apart. He also said that spending on Sure Start children’s centres would rise in line with inflation.
Other measures outlined in the budget include providing £9.4bn in new business loans, with nearly half to small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) over the next year and increasing the National Minimum Wage by 2.2 per cent to £5.93 in October 2010.
In response to the budget announcements, the DCSF confirmed that it would cut spending on central programmes and administration, including ending start-up funding for extended services, now that 95 per cent of schools are offering breakfast and after school activities.
The National Day Nurseries Association said the prospect that nurseries would see a cut in business rates from October was welcome.
Chief executive Purnima Tanuku said, ‘Many nurseries are small businesses that struggle with paying these rates and ultimately this impacts upon fees for parents. We look forward to hearing what sort of savings might be made under this, and believe that this will potentially support the sustainability of the sector.
It is also good that Government support for small to medium-sized enterprises will be streamlined. Nurseries sometimes struggle to understand where to go for general funding and help for them as a business, and we hope bringing this together will help identify opportunities for support outside of those designed solely for the sector. It is also positive that banks will be expected to offer more small business loans. A large proportion of the sector are small businesses and some report that they are currently finding it hard to access affordable finance.’
However, she added that she was disappointed that there was not more in the budget to help families with childcare costs.
‘The economy will not recover overnight, and childcare plays a vital role in enabling parents to work and support this recovery. Support for parents with the cost of formal childcare is even more crucial in times of economic downturn, as is the availability of high quality care and early learning,’ she said.