'Meagre' council funding behind low childcare pay
Jess Brown
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Rates of pay for nursery staff are being held down by "meagre" local authority funding for early years providers to deliver the free childcare scheme, the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) has warned.
NDNA chief executive Purnima Tanuku said nursery managers and owners want to pay their staff the living wage rate, which is £9.15 per hour in London and £7.85 per hour elsewhere, but are unable to because rates paid by councils for free childcare places for two-, three- and four-year-olds are insufficient to make it economical.
She called on the government to use the Spending Review later this month to increase the hourly rate paid for providing free childcare places to help operators to continue to deliver the flagship scheme before the entitlement is expanded in 2017 from 15 to 30 hours a week.
NDNA raised concerns after the publication of research by accountants KPMG which showed that 280,000 of the 699,000 childcare workforce in the UK are paid below the living wage.
The study, based on Office for National Statistics figures, also found that overall, 29 per cent of woman are paid less than the living wage, compared with 18 per cent of men, a factor for childcare where 98 per cent of the workforce are women.
Tanuku said it is "unacceptable" that the living wage remains "out of reach for many dedicated and brilliant childcare practitioners".
“We know that nursery managers and owners would happily pay the living wage but their hands are tied by the meagre rates that they are paid by their local authorities for funded places for eligible two-year-olds and all three- and four-year-olds," she said.
“This 15 hours per week is soon to double, which will only serve to exacerbate the problem unless the Chancellor acts to give nurseries a fair deal in his Spending Review.
“If the funding was fair and adequate, our nurseries would be able to reward their staff with the pay they deserve so they can afford a decent standard of living for themselves and their families.”
Earlier this year, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced a national living wage would be introduced from April 2016, starting at £7.20 an hour and rising to £9 an hour by 2020, for all workers aged 25 and over.
A survey of childcare providers by NDNA in August found that employers’ payroll costs will rise by an average of 10 per cent next year and 35 per cent by 2020 as a result of the introduction of the national living wage.
