Under proposals put forward by Birmingham City Council, nurseries in the private, voluntary and independent (PVI) sectors will be required to sign the Birmingham Business Charter for Social Responsibility if they wish to contract with it and continue to receive funding to deliver the free childcare scheme from April 2015.
The council requires all signatories to the charter to pay their employees the living wage – an independent rate set annually by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University on behalf of the Living Wage Foundation.
The current national living wage is set at £7.65 an hour (£8.80 in London) and the minimum wage at £6.31, meaning some PVI nurseries will be forced to increase staff wages – potentially by raising childcare fees – in order to retain their free childcare funding allocation.
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