Tag Archives: nursery

Yet another blow to families as childcare costs skyrocket

Who could afford to be a parent under this Conservative government?

Inflation is above 10 per cent while wages are stagnating because the Tories want them to.

Energy bills are set to hit an average of £3,000 per year because the Tories won’t keep their price guarantee for another three months and won’t help with the extra costs.

Local authorities across England (I haven’t heard about the other UK countries) are set to increase Council Tax by the maximum amount allowed, and are still set to reduce services – because the Tories won’t provide enough in the central government grant.

And now child care costs are set to rise by an eye-watering £1,000 per year.

Try to ignore the Labour Party flag-waving from Imran Hussain; it’s the news story link below that matters:

The story states:

A survey of 1,156 providers by the Early Years Alliance found nine out of 10 expect to increase fees, typically in April, and by an average of 8% – higher than in previous years.

UK childcare costs are already among the most expensive in the world, with full-time fees for a child under two at nursery reaching an average £269 a week last year – or just under £14,000 annually.

An 8% rise would take that to more than £15,000.

Who can afford that?

The concern is that by this stage many parents – particularly mothers – have felt forced to drop out of work or cut their hours.

Three and four-year-olds in England attending a nursery or childminder are eligible for either 15 or 30 free hours a week depending on whether their parents work, so their costs are a lot lower.

Most nurseries and childminders surveyed – 87% – said the money they get from the government does not cover their costs to provide the “free” hours – leaving them out of pocket.

More than half of providers (51%) said they had operated at a loss last year. A handful said they were looking at fee increases of as much as 25%.

An option to extend free hours to all two-year-olds is understood to have been ruled out.

The problem for the Tories is that there aren’t enough people in the workforce as it is; if people have to quit their jobs to look after their children, the economic result could be disastrous.

Only today (February 16), this site commented on an alleged plan to persuade GPs not to sign sick notes for people with long-term illnesses in order to force them to stay at work.

But this will not help as people who are sick either won’t be able to carry out the amount of work required, or won’t be able to work at all.

Before Brexit, the UK could always bring in a migrant workforce from Europe – but the silly Tories ended that with their Brexit. They only have themselves to blame.

And This Writer’s instinct says they’re only going to make matters worse.


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Humiliated Tories scrap controversial (racist?) nationality census for 2-5 year-olds

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn launched a motion this week to stop pupil nationality data collection [Image: BBC].

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn launched a motion this week to stop pupil nationality data collection [Image: BBC].

This is a sneaky move by Theresa May and her gang.

It’s another humiliating climbdown and U-turn for a prime minister who has spent her entire prime ministerial career of such things, but they’re trying to use it to de-fang moves by the Labour Party to stand up for children.

It is quite clear that the Party of Division (that’s the Conservative Party, for those who need to be told) wanted to create another fake enemy for “hardworking British people” (whoever they are) to hate.

Theresa May’s cronies knew there was resentment against “immigrants” who are said to be taking away our housing, health and school places.

This is because Conservatives have been rationing these services (under the banner of fake “austerity” – fake because it affects only the poor and not the rich).

Instead of addressing the real cause of the problem – their own rationing process – Mrs May’s Tories wanted to capitalise on it by making the perceived cause – “immigrants” – more visible and therefore more vulnerable.

Jeremy Corbyn has put forward a motion to block this – and it has cross-party support in Parliament. So now Theresa May and her Tories look like xenophobes and racists.

Their solution: Cancel the monitoring of children aged two-to-five but continue with the rest.

They’ll seem to be acting benevolently while still collecting enough information to continue pursuing their “divide and rule” policy.

Nursery schools will no longer be forced to collect details on the nationality and birth place of children as young as two… following a Government U-turn over the controversial school census.

Since September this year, schools, colleges and nurseries have been required to ask parents to provide details of where their children were born, as well as nationality and English language proficiency – a move MPs say has “all the hallmarks of racism”.

The new legislation, which comes as part of an expansion on the existing school census, have been met with fierce backlash from parents, campaigners and MPs, who have criticised the census as “dangerous and divisive” and raised concerns over how the information is being used.

After meeting with campaign group Schools Against Border for Children (ABC), Department for Education officials said the collection of data on nationality and country of birth would not be extended towards children aged two to five, despite previous Government guidance stating the contrary.

The requirement still stands for children of primary and secondary school age, in spite of cross-party opposition and a motion lodged by Jeremy Corbyn to block the new legislation.

Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner has condemned the census as it stands, criticising the Government for forcing schools to police the immigration status of children.

Department for Education officials said Education Secretary Justine Greening had disagreed with the proposals set out by her predecessor Nicky Morgan to expand data collection.

Source: Government scraps plans for controversial nationality census for 2-5 year-olds in humiliating U-turn | The Independent

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Tory Britain today: Children are falling behind due to nursery teacher shortage

In 2015-16 half of all three- and four-year-olds in England attended an independent nursery without an early years teacher [Image: Dominic Lipinski/PA].

In 2015-16 half of all three- and four-year-olds in England attended an independent nursery without an early years teacher [Image: Dominic Lipinski/PA].

What is this? How can children be at risk of falling behind in their development when the Tories are sinking £6 billion into nurseries, with a free 30-hour per week childcare scheme?

Simple. The money invested won’t cover the costs and nurseries will go bust.

And when they do, the Tories will say it’s the nurseries’ fault because they put a lot of money into funding them. Meanwhile, our children will lose out, while theirs will benefit from going to private, fully-funded facilities, no doubt.

The knock-on drawbacks will only be felt later, when these children start to fail as adults.

That’s Tory economics for you.

They don’t know how much anything costs and have no idea how much anything is worth.

More than a quarter of a million children are at an increased risk of falling behind in their development by the time they reach school because of a chronic shortage of qualified nursery teachers, according to a leading charity.

A Save the Children report says an extra 10,000 trained early years staff are needed if all children are to have access to high-quality pre-school childcare, but many nurseries are struggling to afford qualified teachers and low pay means applications for nursery jobs have dropped dramatically.

The report – Untapped Potential: How England’s Nursery Lottery is Failing Too Many Children – says children in independent nurseries without an early years teacher are almost 10% less likely to meet the expected levels of development when they start school, compared with children who have a nursery teacher.

Source: Children at risk of falling behind due to nursery teacher shortage – report | Education | The Guardian

Do you want Vox Political to cover a story? Use this form to tell us about it:

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Iain Duncan Smith’s shirkers and scroungers: Soldiers, teachers and nurses

 

David Cameron, pictured in the Telegraph article: "I want to go on," he says, neglecting to add, "harming the honest, the hard-working, the strivers and the tryers of the UK. I want to go on rewarding the tax-dodgers, the bankers, the exploiters and Parliamentary scroungers. I want to go on deceiving the easily-led into believing that my way is the only way, and duping my Coalition partners into supporting my extreme right-wing policies until I can sling them into the gutter in 2015". Does that seem about right to you?

David Cameron, pictured in the Telegraph article: “I want to go on,” he says, neglecting to add, “harming the honest, the hard-working, the strivers and the tryers of the UK. I want to go on rewarding the tax-dodgers, the bankers, the exploiters and Parliamentary scroungers. I want to go on deceiving the easily-led into believing that my way is the only way, and duping my Coalition partners into supporting my extreme right-wing policies until I can sling them into the gutter in 2015”. Does that seem about right to you?

Apparently ‘Compassionate Conservatism’ doesn’t extend to people in certain professions.

According to a new analysis by The Children’s Society published in The Observer, almost half a million soldiers, teachers and nurses will lose hundreds of pounds every year when the Coalition’s latest benefit cut comes into force.

The cap of one per cent on benefit and tax credits upratings over the next three years means up to 40,000 soldiers will be worse-off: A second lieutenant in the army with three children, earning £470 a week and whose wife does not work will lose £552 per year.

Around 150,000 primary and nursery school teachers will lose out: A couple with two children where the sole earner is a primary school teacher earning £600 per week will lose £424.

But the majority of losers in the professions will be nurses – 300,000 of them. A lone-parent nurse with two children, earning the profession’s average of £530 per week, will lose £424 per year.

For a government that likes to state “We love the NHS”, the Coalition seems to really enjoy attacking nurses and trying to cover it up. By December 13 last year, 7,134 nursing posts had been lost since the Coalition came into power, 943 in the previous month alone. But when the issue was raised in Parliamentary debate, Health Secretary and gynaecological slang-term Jeremy Hunt did his level best to avoid giving a straight response. “The nurse to bed ratio has gone up. The average bed is getting an extra two hours of nursing care, per week, than under Labour.” That didn’t tell us how many nurses had lost their jobs. So we got: “The number of clinical staff in the NHS has gone up and not down. I don’t want to micro-manage every hospital in the country and tell them how many doctors and how many nurses.”

Perhaps there’s some deep-seated childhood trauma affected all the members of the Coalition government, that makes them want to persecute nurses and then try to cover it up? Whatever the case, I’m sure the facts would form the skeleton of a terrific little crime thriller.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that the government will be debating an increase of one per cent in benefits this year. With inflation at 2.7 or 3.2 per cent, depending on which system you use, that’s a real-terms cut of two per cent every year for the next three years.

I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that these figures were compiled by The Children’s Society, meaning they relate only to working parents. The one per cent cap on benefit rises will hit single working people as well – we just don’t have the figures for them yet.

The figures make a nonsense of Iain Duncan Smith’s increasingly desperate claims that his policy of cuts and persecution to achieve lower take-up of welfare benefits is fair.

The Tories have now alienated working people and those on benefits. Who’s next, do you think? I reckon pensioners had better prepare for the worst!

Remember last week, when he trotted out a roll of fabricated figures to make it seem that the tax credit system had run out of control under Labour (tax credits are among the benefits to be capped at one per cent)? It turns out that all his figures were wrong, with his claims about fraud – which stands at less than one per cent of total claims – spectacularly inaccurate.

How about the very next day, when he was dribbling about the relative percentage rises in Jobseekers’ Allowance and private sector salaries, claiming that the unemployed were getting a far better deal than workers – only to be rebuffed when we all checked how much this was in real money, found out that workers were still making far more (although not enough – remember many employers pay so little that people working full-time still have to claim state benefits, so that’s a subsidy for private companies, being paid out of our taxes). The amount paid in benefits as a proportion of average wages has stayed the same, as it should. The Work and Pensions Secretary is hell-bent on breaking that link in order to inflict real harm on Britain’s poorest.

Does anybody remember the Tory slogan “Broken Britain”? What they didn’t tell us was that they were the ones who wanted to break us!

And now David Cameron has told the Telegraph he wants to be Prime Minister for another full term, from 2015 to 2020. If he manages that feat, he will no doubt face pressure from some of his own cabinet members to inflict further harm on those receiving benefits.

For example, a group of 70 Tory MPs including Michael Gove and David Willetts have published an agenda of policies that one minister has already – according to the Torygraph – described as a “blueprint” for the party’s next general election manifesto.

It includes plans to lengthen the school day “to help working parents” – how do you like that, all you teachers who are losing benefits this year? You can rest assured that your pay won’t increase to cover the extra hours!

And it calls for benefits to be cut for people who live in the North, and other parts of the country where the cost of living is lower. They love regional pay, don’t they? And they WILL drive it through, no matter how much of the population oppose it!

For a representative selection of citizens’ opinions about this, I suggest you visit the MSN news site’s version of this story where (when I looked last night) the Comment column was unanimously opposed to Cameron continuing. That’s something like 20-odd pages of people demanding that he be ousted at the first opportunity.

It did my heart good to see that.

The sad truth is that none of the above will change the result of the debate and vote on benefits uprating, due to take place in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

As long as the Tories have the support of Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats, they have a majority and can vote through any ludicrous and harmful policies they please.

The only thing I can suggest is that you all email your MPs in advance of the debate and put pressure on them to do the right thing – or account for their decision if they vote with the government – especially if you live in the North, or in rural areas!

As ever, you can find your MP’s contact details here: http://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-your-mp/

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political needs your help!
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Alternatively, you can buy Vox Political books!
The second – Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook
The first, Strong Words and Hard Times
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook