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30 Hours Free Early Education – Parents Questionnaire

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This consultation has now closed.

The council is currently analysing the results.

Overview

All Local Authorities have a new requirement to secure an additional 15 hours of free childcare for 3 and 4 year old children of eligible working parents.

This will come into effect from September 2017 and will provide the eligible parents with a total 30 hours of free childcare per week, over 38 weeks.

The aim of the 30 hours free childcare is to support and enable parents back into employment or to work extra hours, supporting an improvement in the standard of living for parents and children.

The 30 hours free

The council is currently analysing the results.

Overview

All Local Authorities have a new requirement to secure an additional 15 hours of free childcare for 3 and 4 year old children of eligible working parents.

This will come into effect from September 2017 and will provide the eligible parents with a total 30 hours of free childcare per week, over 38 weeks.

The aim of the 30 hours free childcare is to support and enable parents back into employment or to work extra hours, supporting an improvement in the standard of living for parents and children.

The 30 hours free childcare is available through all formal childcare providers as outlined below:

  • registered childminder, playscheme, nursery or club
  • childminder with an Ofsted-registered childminding agency
  • registered school
  • home careworker working for a registered home care agency

You can find you out more about the eligibility criteria required for the additional 15 hours free childcare here.

As part of securing this additional childcare we are currently consulting with parents to gain a better understanding of the current and future childcare use, and to help gauge what the future demand could be for the additional 15 hours free childcare.

Why we are consulting

We wish to hear from all parents with children aged four or under about their current use of childcare provision and their future use.

We are particularly keen to hear from you if you are currently:

  • accessing the existing 15 hours free childcare;
  • not accessing the existing 15 hours free childcare but may do in the future;
  • only using informal childcare, for example a relative looking after your child/ren; but considering using formal childcare in the future to access free childcare;
  • live outside the borough but access formal childcare within Barnet.
This consultation has now closed.

  • Feedback updated 15 May 2017

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    We Asked

    We asked parents with children aged four or under about their current and future use of childcare provision. We wanted to know this in order to better understand the future demand for the additional 15 hours of free childcare to be introduced in September 2017, for 3 and 4 year olds.

    The consultation ran from the 22 February 2017 – 5 April 2017 with an online questionnaire (anonymous responses) being available during this period on the council’s Engage Barnet website available to all stakeholders. A document with information on the 30 hours of free childcare and eligibility criteria for parents to qualify for the additional 15 hours was available.

    You Said

    Overall we received 49 responses.

    Of these, 78% had accessed some form of childcare in the past 6 months. The majority that answered questions on their current childcare answered that: their child attends a nursery school, playgroup or pre-school; they currently receive free childcare and their child(ren) attend for 8-14 or 15-20 hours a week; they pay for childcare from Monday to Friday, paying more than £161 a week and that it was easy for them to find a childcare provider at suitable times and dates.

    Of the 7 parents that answered a question on if they plan to access formal (i.e. nursery) childcare in the next 18 months, 6 agreed they would.

    Most parents said it was very likely that they would use the additional 15 hours of childcare if these were available now and most would access 11-15 hours of this a week. Most would switch to another provider to access this if their current provider couldn’t offer the additional hours, but would only use one provider for all their children.

    Most respondents were currently in work and had a partner in work. Most agreed that the additional 15 hours of childcare would benefit them to increase their working hours and reduce the cost of childcare to their household.

    We Did

    The results of the consultation were presented to a 30 Hour Working Party on 19 April 2017 in order to plan future provision. This party included representatives from across the Early Years sector in Barnet, including nursery and daycare managers and reception teachers.