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Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, there

0:47

are big changes coming in this

0:49

year to help millions of parents

0:51

in England with childcare. So

0:54

that's what we're talking about on this week's

0:56

Moneybox Live podcast. Because while

0:58

the children learn to count... One,

1:02

two, three, four,

1:04

five. Parents

1:07

are left counting the cost of some much

1:09

bigger numbers. The price of nursery can be

1:12

more than a mortgage. In fact, to send

1:14

a two-year-old to nursery for 50 hours a

1:16

week, allowing you to work full-time, can set

1:18

you back more than £14,000 a year, at

1:23

least until the new funding kicks in. From

1:25

April this year, working parents in England can

1:27

claim 15 funded hours for two-year-olds instead

1:30

of waiting for them to turn three to get help.

1:33

Applications for that support are now open.

1:35

But let's hear from some parents, including

1:38

Jasmine, who's a mum of two with one

1:40

child in nursery. Hi, Moneybox.

1:42

I'm Jasmine. I have a son called George,

1:44

who is two. He

1:46

currently goes to nursery four

1:48

days a week and that costs us

1:51

around £1,000 a month, which

1:54

is astronomical. It's basically

1:56

a second mortgage. We

1:59

are looking forward to the value. can get these 15 free

2:01

hours in April. I still don't

2:03

have a clue how to apply for them. I

2:06

do have a tax-free childcare account. Does

2:08

it go through there? Do we have to

2:11

apply for the council? Do we have to

2:13

contact the nursery? I think I'm going to

2:15

have to contact the nursery just to find

2:17

out because I don't want

2:20

to miss out. No parent with

2:22

a £1,000 monthly bill would want to

2:25

miss out. Well, listening to Jasmine

2:27

are today's childcare experts. I'm joined

2:29

by Paul Rhodes from the Money

2:31

and Pension Service and Megan Meek

2:33

O'Connor, Senior Policy Advisor on Child

2:35

Poverty at Save the Children UK.

2:37

Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Felicity.

2:39

Thank you very much for joining us. Megan,

2:41

let's start with you then. To Jasmine's

2:44

question, how does it work? How can

2:46

people actually make sure they can claim

2:48

these hours? Hi, Felicity. Thanks for

2:50

having me on. I

2:52

think the first thing to do is, like

2:54

Jasmine said, it is always worth just talking

2:57

to your nursery because they'll be able to

2:59

explain things and they'll have got training and

3:01

help on this on how it can work

3:03

best. But I can also give some

3:05

advice right now while I'm on air. What

3:07

you need to do is create your childcare

3:10

support account. Actually, I think Jasmine said that

3:12

she already has tax-free childcare.

3:14

It should all be on the same account. That

3:17

means you log in using your government

3:19

gateway and then you'll get a code. The

3:22

code will be generated just in the same way that it

3:24

is for the three and four hours that parents of

3:26

older children will know about. And then

3:28

once you've got that code, you just have to

3:30

take it to your nursery, show them the code,

3:32

and then they'll see that you are officially eligible

3:34

for the support. Okay. And

3:37

we should just again be very clear, this

3:39

changes for England only, the extra

3:41

funded hours. We'll take a look at the

3:43

other nations in just a moment. Paul, that

3:45

figure that 50 hours a week for a

3:48

two-year-old costs £14,000 came from

3:50

Coram, the children's charity. These

3:52

additional funded hours were announced in the

3:54

last spring budget. Can you just explain

3:57

what's changing and when for parents in

3:59

England? Absolutely. So what we're

4:01

talking about here is the free entitlement

4:03

offer in England and that's made

4:05

up of three different parts The

4:07

first as it currently stands is the universal

4:09

entitlement and that Gives

4:12

all three and four year olds 15

4:14

hours for 38 weeks of the year.

4:16

So that's term time only There's

4:19

then the extended entitlement which is worth

4:21

another 15 hours a week for working

4:23

families And then there's a two-year-old offer

4:25

which provides 15 hours a week again

4:27

Just during term time if

4:29

you're in receipt of particular benefits now

4:31

the expansion of this The

4:34

first part of which comes in fourth in

4:36

April this year is that two year olds

4:38

in working families will get access to 15

4:40

Hours a week and then from September that

4:42

will then extend to all children

4:45

From nine months old eventually culminating in

4:47

30 hours from September 25. Yes It's

4:50

gonna build up isn't it over time and

4:52

the government says its reforms will save Working

4:54

parents using 30 hours a week an average

4:56

of six and a half thousand pounds a

4:58

year Paul aside then from those

5:00

funded hours. What other help is available

5:02

to parents? Well, jasmine's

5:04

already mentioned that she has a

5:07

tax-free child care account, which is

5:09

fantastic That essentially is

5:11

where for every eight pounds that you put

5:13

into your account the government tops it up

5:15

with a further Two pounds

5:17

it's worth 500 pounds every quarter.

5:20

So two thousand pounds a year per child

5:22

So it's a really important scheme

5:24

to access and actually the take-up of it

5:26

overall is really low So if there's any

5:28

parents out there who aren't accessing it and

5:30

this is the first time they've heard of

5:32

it Then i'd really encourage them to sign up

5:35

And megan that tax-free child care system is

5:37

available in scotland wales and northern island as

5:39

well as england This is available to a

5:42

lot of parents Yeah, it's available

5:44

to loads of parents. But as paul said

5:46

there's a huge under use of it Um,

5:48

I think there's a 2.4 billion under spend

5:50

So definitely if you're listening and you haven't

5:53

claimed it take a look once you've set

5:55

up your account It's not too complicated. I

5:58

think that you know, the name can sometimes be off people

6:00

think that it's going to be more administrative

6:02

work than they think it actually

6:05

will be. So definitely look

6:07

into it because it can provide a lot of support

6:09

and you can use it for your nursery hours but

6:11

you can also use it for older

6:13

children, wrap-around care, after-school clubs, as

6:15

long as they're off-dead accredited. Yes,

6:18

we're talking about the number of parents who aren't

6:20

using it. Government figures show 800,000 families

6:22

that could use it aren't. No

6:25

doubt they could benefit some of them. I should say

6:27

though, parents have to be working at least 16 hours

6:29

a week to qualify and if either

6:32

parent earns £100,000 or more in the

6:34

current tax year, then you're not eligible.

6:36

OK, that's tax-free childcare and we've had

6:38

a quick look at the extended hours.

6:41

Let's just go back to the codes that

6:43

parents need in order to claim those

6:45

funded hours. Well, the Department of Education

6:47

has told Moneybox Live it's investigating concerns

6:49

that some parents might not be able

6:52

to access them from the

6:54

1st of April and Moneybox Live producer Sarah

6:56

Rogers has been looking into this and is

6:58

here now. Sarah, this is

7:00

about the timing of the application process, isn't it?

7:03

Exactly that. So parents who already use

7:05

the system will know that they need

7:07

to reconfirm their details every three months

7:10

and then when they do this they can apply for a

7:12

code that they need for those funded childcare

7:14

hours which they then give to their

7:16

provider to process. So, sounds fairly straightforward.

7:20

But, listeners that have been getting in touch

7:22

with us on this, so Charlotte emailed to

7:24

say that her reconfirmation window is at the

7:26

end of March and so she's worried that

7:28

her code won't be processed by the nursery

7:30

in time to get the hours from the

7:32

1st of April. Martin also emailed on this,

7:35

he commented, it seems crazy that many people

7:37

are missed out due to what is an

7:39

admin issue. So might some parents miss out

7:41

in April then? Well, it does definitely look

7:43

like there's a potential for a delay.

7:45

I did speak to the Department for

7:47

Education about this. It acknowledges what it

7:50

calls a small minority of parents who

7:52

are in the same boat as Charlotte

7:54

and Martin and says it's working on

7:56

further options to ensure that those parents

7:58

can confirm their status. places in time.

8:01

Now that could be that nurseries amend

8:03

invoices at a later date but of

8:05

course that's not ideal if that's not

8:07

what you've budgeted for and the government

8:09

also insists that the application system is

8:12

working and thousands of parents are

8:14

applying for and receiving codes every day

8:16

but that also means that thousands of

8:18

parents might also be affected by this

8:20

issue as well. Yes it does Sarah

8:22

thank you very much and of course

8:25

the Moneybox team will be keeping a

8:27

close eye on this. Let us know

8:29

if you have any difficulties at all

8:31

Moneybox at bbc.co.uk. Now parents

8:33

may be relieved to get every funded

8:36

hour they can. What about

8:38

the childcare providers? Sarah has been busy,

8:40

has also visited this nursery in Bolton

8:42

to meet the owner and staff and

8:45

ask why fees are so expensive. See

8:53

often people thinking early is that we babysit, we're

8:55

coming and they do nothing and we look after

8:57

them for all days and you can see how

9:00

excited these children are at learning new things. Well

9:07

I'm Julie Robinson and I'm the owner

9:09

of Eager Schoolhouse Nursery and we

9:12

cater for 66 children a day. Why

9:14

is childcare so expensive for parents? I

9:16

mean let's be honest a nursery fee

9:19

is like another mortgage aren't they and

9:22

we've known that for years. Parents don't always

9:24

understand that they've got to pay and that

9:26

can cause conflict so when they come into

9:28

the setter and say I want my three

9:30

hours you're sort of defending what you do.

9:32

What it means is you get funding and

9:34

a contribution towards the fees and it is

9:36

term time only so it isn't funded throughout

9:38

the year. What are you charging for? So

9:40

for hours it's 59 pounds

9:42

a day. We are struggling with the

9:45

rate that we've got. There's so much

9:47

like the energy costs have increased you

9:49

know our business rates have doubled our

9:51

energy costs trebled and yet we don't

9:54

have additional funding I don't think

9:56

I know any nursery owner that goes in this to

9:58

make money and I think that's

10:00

what people think. They'll see you know what

10:02

you have and think oh you're just you

10:04

know profit-making and it's all about taking money

10:06

and having a nice fancy car

10:08

it really isn't. Ten little

10:10

dinosaurs walking in a lie,

10:12

Stomp goes dit for Dokus

10:15

and now there are nine.

10:17

I'm Sophie actually, I actually work at

10:20

the nursery so I'm a practitioner here

10:22

and my daughter comes here as well.

10:24

She does three days and obviously

10:26

I would have liked a little bit more but

10:28

we just can't. The nursery is all

10:30

full as it is. So you work

10:32

here? Yes I work here and I

10:35

do not have an extra space for

10:37

my child and I would love that. Yeah

10:40

demand's huge and we already had a

10:42

waiting list to secure places and we've

10:44

also now got a waiting list for

10:46

the extra days and extra hours. And

10:48

there isn't the space. And there isn't

10:50

the space sadly the sector has lost

10:52

an amount of people in Chalka and

10:54

I think that's from them feeling absolutely

10:56

devalued. We're not able to pay the

10:58

wages that we want to pay them

11:01

because the funding isn't there. Can

11:03

we make a snowman? Hi I'm

11:05

Dobby. Hi so I'm Ryan, I've been here

11:07

for about a year now. I do a

11:09

lot of I've done a lot of work

11:11

around many nearly years as

11:14

there is a lack of male participation in

11:16

the early years sector. I

11:19

don't do this job for the money. But

11:21

we all need to earn money. Yes we

11:23

do yes just wish that maybe

11:25

we could get paid like a teacher.

11:36

That Diplodocus dinosaur storybook sounded

11:38

absolutely brutal. Megan,

11:40

Julie there clearly understands this is a significant

11:42

cost for parents but she also knows that

11:45

her own bills have gone up. What

11:47

have childcare providers said about

11:49

the funding that is available?

11:52

Yeah we've had a lot of people in

11:54

similar positions to Julie and childcare providers

11:57

I think they are just worried sick

11:59

about how expensive things are, how they're

12:01

going to continue to provide the kind of quality

12:03

care and education that the

12:05

children they look after need. The

12:07

new funding in Tritument, it's just

12:09

not really enough. The Early Years

12:11

Alliance has estimated that providers

12:13

will receive £4.80 per hour for

12:17

three and four-year-olds, so that's per

12:19

child per hour. But the real cost of

12:21

providing it is more like £7.50. So that's

12:24

an almost £3 per hour per

12:26

child shortfall. It adds up really

12:28

quickly and they're just so

12:30

worried about how they're going to continue to

12:32

do this. Nursery providers, they're

12:34

thinking about

12:37

having to put a cap on the max number

12:39

of free hours parents that they can have in

12:41

their nursery. They're thinking about how

12:44

else they can make up that money.

12:46

Previously, a lot of nurseries cross-subsidised, so

12:49

they charge more for the non-free places in

12:51

order to fund the free places, but their

12:53

options for this have now been really limited and

12:56

there's just a lot of worry among

12:58

childcare providers, among parents about how they're going

13:00

to continue. Okay, and

13:02

can nurseries charge parents for

13:04

the extra? Can they charge

13:06

top-up fees? So in theory,

13:08

your nurseries aren't allowed to charge

13:10

top-up fees when providing the free hours

13:13

offers and they can't actually,

13:15

they're not supposed to charge extra plus

13:18

four to free hours, but the problem is

13:20

that there are very few parents who actually

13:22

just use those 15 or 30 free

13:24

hours. So what providers may ask for

13:27

instead is other charges, so

13:29

things like extra charges for nappies,

13:32

clothes, extra charges for the

13:34

non-free hours, extra charges for

13:36

early pick-up, late drop-off and

13:38

those kind of things, like most

13:40

parents in sort of standard hours

13:43

of work will need late drop-off,

13:45

will need early pick-up, so it

13:47

becomes really complicated for them and

13:49

then the prices rise massively. Well,

13:52

the Department of Education told us it's investing hundreds

13:54

of millions of pounds to increase rates paid

13:56

for government-funded hours. places

14:00

are an issue as well. So data from the

14:02

Office for National Statistics has shown there were almost

14:04

5,000 fewer

14:06

childcare providers last March compared to the

14:08

same time in 2022. That

14:12

includes child minders, of course. Nadine is one

14:14

and she's been in touch to say this. All

14:16

the parents have messaged and said,

14:19

brilliant, all our children are

14:21

eligible for free childcare. And

14:24

we are left on the other side of the scale at the

14:26

moment saying, potentially, yes, you will be

14:28

entitled to it, but we don't know whether we

14:30

could offer it because we don't

14:32

know whether it will keep our business sustainable. But

14:35

it's really difficult. I'm

14:37

a single parent, I'm

14:39

self-employed, so I really

14:42

will have to do some number crunching. So,

14:44

Megan, we were talking about potentially not offering the

14:47

full hours and not being able to offer all

14:49

customers those hours. And we heard a nursery

14:51

worker earlier saying she can't even get extra

14:54

hours for her child because their nursery is

14:56

full. Is this sort of

14:58

overcrowding over demand common? Does it stop

15:00

parents being able to claim their proper

15:02

entitlement? Yeah, absolutely. And I

15:04

think parents listening to this will be

15:06

familiar with the kind of long delays

15:09

to finding a childcare place. I know that

15:11

people are signing up their kids for childcare

15:13

places before they're even born. And

15:16

then now with this change in the free

15:19

hours offer, what a lot

15:21

of nurseries seem to be doing is just

15:24

like that child minder was sort

15:26

of saying, thinking about ways that they can balance

15:28

the book, thinking about ways they can make it work.

15:31

We were speaking to a parent that we work

15:33

with who stands to gain just 36 pounds per

15:35

week from the new free hours. That's a lot

15:38

less than she anticipated. And it

15:40

also comes with a reduction in the hours she

15:42

can afford because the nursery is having to charge

15:44

so much more for the early hours that she

15:46

previously used. So I think

15:48

Nadine's situation is far from unusual.

15:51

It's not as straightforward as more hours, more

15:54

care. Absolutely not. Paul, you're witnessing this

15:56

firsthand, aren't you? You have somebody in

15:58

preschool, you have a... three-year-old. Are the

16:01

funding hours just an absolute smooth sailing

16:03

for you? Yeah so

16:05

my son is three and a half, he's going

16:07

to school in September.

16:09

He only goes two days

16:11

a week so it's about nineteen and a half

16:13

hours. We do get the 30

16:16

hours free but we

16:18

spread it across the whole year so not just term

16:20

time so that does mean we do have to pay

16:22

on top

16:24

of that. So we received

16:26

our bill for January yesterday

16:29

and it's £85. So

16:32

not you know a huge amount based

16:34

on what we were paying before the hours

16:37

but it is still you know £85 isn't

16:39

an insignificant amount of number

16:41

if you think you're getting three hours. Megan

16:45

briefly can you split the funded hours

16:47

between different providers like a child minder

16:49

and a nursery if that's what you

16:51

need to do to secure the actual

16:53

hours that you need? Yeah you

16:55

can do that and often that might work for

16:57

example if you want one close to home and one

16:59

close to work. There is a

17:01

limit on it you can only choose two

17:03

providers within the same day and

17:06

that's usually fine for most parents. Thank

17:08

you. Right we've had an email from

17:10

Sarah in Scotland about the new childcare

17:13

funding for industries. She says I live

17:15

in Scotland and so I'm unfortunately not

17:17

eligible for this benefit. I desperately want

17:20

the Scottish Government to provide clarity on

17:22

when they're going to match the benefit

17:24

provided by their counterparts in England. Plans

17:26

seem to still be in development. Paul

17:29

before we get to Sarah's question,

17:31

Scotland does have a different funded

17:33

childcare offering to England. Can you

17:35

outline how the support is

17:37

different across the whole of the UK? Sure

17:40

so yeah so in all four nations we have

17:42

different systems so in Scotland all three and four

17:44

year olds can get the 30 hours

17:46

funded during term time. Some

17:48

two year olds are eligible depending on

17:50

if your child has experience of care,

17:52

if you get certain benefits and then

17:54

there are also certain local authority schemes

17:57

as well you can check mygov.scot for the

17:59

information. In Wales, working parents,

18:01

three and four year olds can claim 30 hours

18:04

for up to 48 weeks of the year.

18:06

Again, they can't claim over 100, earn over £100,000,

18:08

but they can check their local family

18:12

information service for more details.

18:15

And then in Northern Ireland,

18:17

there is no free

18:19

childcare scheme, but there is

18:21

preschool education. So a little

18:23

bit different in Northern Ireland. If you check

18:26

out the Money Helper website, we've got more

18:28

information available on there. And

18:30

also, if you're not entirely sure

18:32

exactly what you're entitled to, you

18:34

can visit the childcarechoices.gov.uk website, which

18:36

does outline the support available across

18:38

the nations. Right, back to

18:40

Sarah's question, we put it to the Scottish

18:43

government and a spokesperson told us that they

18:45

believe Scotland's childcare offer is the most generous

18:47

in the UK. They said Scotland

18:49

is the only part of the UK to

18:51

already offer 30 term time hours a week

18:55

to all three and four year olds,

18:57

regardless of their parents' working status. And

19:00

they said if families were paying for that themselves, it would cost

19:02

about £5,000 per

19:04

child per year. Right.

19:07

What about, though, the costs of childcare once

19:09

they make it to school? Nick got in

19:11

touch with us on this. My

19:13

family and I, we work

19:15

full time. My wife and I both commute

19:17

into London. We've

19:20

got a three year old, so she'll be

19:22

going into school in September. The

19:24

wraparound care is the big one.

19:27

I think we've been used to now

19:30

having nursery up until

19:32

six o'clock. How do we manage

19:34

that? How do we find out about

19:36

wraparound care and any tips

19:39

for how to cope with the

19:42

childcare challenge? We're all about the top

19:44

tips on Moneybooks Live. Meghan, Nick already

19:46

looking ahead to the costs that come

19:48

next. What kind of bills might

19:50

he be facing? I think

19:52

that's very sensible of Nick to be planning because it's

19:54

not like all the problems just go away once your

19:57

kids start school. The first

19:59

thing to say is that it can just vary so

20:01

much from place to place, from

20:03

borough to borough. So I definitely recommend sort

20:05

of looking on local parents forums, speaking to

20:08

your council and getting in touch directly

20:10

with the school to see what support they

20:12

offer and also whether they

20:14

know of any sort of local accredited childcare

20:16

providers. So

20:18

there are, if you want to sort

20:21

of work, the same as he

20:23

was working previously, while his kids were in

20:25

nursery, probably need to access

20:27

breakfast clubs, where kids arrive before school starts and

20:29

they can eat food there too. And

20:32

also after school clubs, after

20:34

school clubs, the kind of average cost

20:36

across the UK was 67 pounds per

20:38

week. And that's across the

20:40

whole country, across Great Britain. So

20:43

that's around 2,600 pounds per year. Again,

20:46

this can vary a lot. So I'd look into that. Yes,

20:48

depends on where you are as the

20:50

kind of sitting, doesn't it? Exactly. But that is

20:52

something, as long as it's all stead accredited, you

20:55

can get support for that through tax free childcare

20:57

as Paul sort of discussed earlier. And

21:00

as well as after school clubs and

21:02

breakfast clubs, there's also holiday care. The

21:04

average price of that can be around 150 pounds per week. So

21:08

it could get you to about 1,000 pounds over

21:10

the course of the summer holidays. So it does

21:12

add up quite quickly. And also it's

21:15

worth saying here that this is if

21:17

you can get those places, I

21:19

think for both after school clubs and

21:21

local authorities and after school

21:23

clubs and holiday activities,

21:26

Corin did a survey and local authorities

21:28

thought that only 25% of

21:31

local authorities thought they had enough

21:33

provision for holiday activities or

21:36

after school clubs within their council. So

21:38

Nick is not out of the woods yet. Unfortunately

21:40

not. Best of luck with it, Nick. Thank you

21:42

for your message. Paul, we've mentioned

21:44

tax free childcare already. And as Megan says,

21:46

you can potentially use it for wraparound care,

21:48

for holiday club. When we talk about the

21:50

families that aren't using it, the 800,000 that

21:53

could use it, but aren't, do you think

21:55

it's this kind of care they're missing out

21:57

on? I think so. situation

22:00

is very similar to my and my son's going to

22:02

school in September and

22:04

at the moment you think fantastic

22:07

none of those nursery bills anymore

22:09

actually realize that the school day

22:11

doesn't sit with our working patterns

22:13

and actually we are going to have to pay

22:15

for that as well. One of the

22:18

other worrying things is that actually last year the

22:20

department for education did a survey of schools, it

22:22

admittedly was only small scale but it found actually

22:24

that two-thirds of them, only

22:27

two-thirds of them were offering this wraparound

22:29

support as well so actually it's do they

22:31

have enough places, do they

22:33

actually offer it in the first place as well is a concerning

22:37

is a concern for parents. There will be

22:39

a concern to some parents but if

22:41

you're struggling to provide a provider it

22:43

might be getting easier soon so from

22:45

September this year the government says there

22:47

will be an increase in places with

22:50

all parents who need access having it

22:52

by 2026 that's according to a government

22:54

spokesperson. We've had an email

22:56

in from Sophie who says my

22:58

son will be two on the 1st of

23:00

May. I've read that I will not be

23:02

eligible to receive the funded hours until the

23:04

term after his second birthday which

23:06

would be September oh Sophie but that

23:08

means I will not only be missing out on

23:10

funding for the majority of the summer term but

23:12

also the holiday club that he goes to during

23:15

the summer which is eligible for the government funding.

23:17

Paul can you shed any light is it just

23:19

bad news for Sophie? I'm afraid

23:21

I think it is I mean it's the same for

23:24

three-year-olds as well so the

23:26

rules around that are that you become

23:28

eligible for any funded childcare the term

23:30

after they reach that relevant

23:33

age so I think unfortunately in this

23:35

situation unless I've misunderstood it I

23:37

think it is unfortunately bad news. Another

23:40

Sarah has emailed to say when our boys started

23:42

school we hired an au pair we had some

23:44

wonderful young people from all over Europe and they

23:46

helped with the housework it was great that does

23:49

sound great and another Sarah has been in touch

23:51

I think we're up to four Sarah's in this

23:53

program so far. Mum of three

23:55

Sarah has messaged on Twitter to say

23:57

that a lot of people don't know

23:59

about the availability of unpaid parental

24:02

leave which can significantly extend

24:04

people's annual leave to cover

24:06

school holidays if They

24:08

can afford to take it. Megan. It's actually

24:10

quite a lot, isn't it? You can have

24:13

up to 18 weeks leave for each child

24:16

and in total up to their 18th birthday

24:18

with a maximum of four weeks a year

24:20

for each child Yeah, you

24:22

can and it really depends

24:24

on your circumstances whether it's going to be affordable

24:27

and achievable to take it But

24:29

for example for a family who had say

24:33

Two kids who needed kind of holiday care And

24:35

then maybe a child in nursery where the price

24:37

of their nursery might also go up during

24:39

the summer holidays It's

24:42

worth doing those kind of calculations and thinking

24:44

am I actually going to be paying to

24:46

go to work? If

24:48

I'm using this childcare and it

24:50

might be useful for the odd day here or there Paul

24:53

as our listeners Sarah says if

24:55

they can afford to take unpaid leave It

24:59

is very much so I mean in a way It's

25:03

great that it's there and certainly when I've

25:05

looked into it before in terms

25:07

of parental entitlement in the round It

25:11

seems like a great to have but but I

25:13

think it certainly wouldn't be something that

25:15

I don't think it would be a benefit to Me.

25:17

I think I'd probably be be worse off. So I

25:19

think Like Megan says

25:22

depends on your personal circumstances weigh that all

25:24

up and do what's best within your own

25:26

household finances Well, if like me

25:29

you're wondering if unpaid parental leave can be

25:31

refused by an employer I did check the

25:33

a cast website the advisory conciliation

25:35

and arbitration It's service website and

25:37

they say that employers cannot refuse

25:40

or completely cancel unpaid parental leave

25:42

But they can postpone it if it's

25:44

going to cause issues at work Megan

25:48

Liz has emailed to say I'm listening while

25:50

I work My grandson goes to

25:52

nursery and I pay for one day

25:54

to keep the family costs down That's

25:56

obviously very kind of Liz, but I

25:58

suppose grandparents and wife a family

26:00

of providing all sorts of different support to

26:02

get children or to get parents into

26:05

the workplace and children looked after. Yeah,

26:07

we're hearing about this sort of thing all

26:10

the time, either grandparents picking up the cost

26:12

or offering care themselves and providing it directly

26:14

to their grandchildren. And I think

26:16

it's just with the cost

26:19

of living, the rising cost of everything that

26:21

your child needs as well as the incredibly

26:23

high cost of childcare, we're seeing more and

26:25

more of this and also, you know,

26:28

for we're seeing a lot of it

26:30

for parents who are in, they're

26:33

in training or studying, and they don't

26:35

actually get any of these extra free hours.

26:38

It's only available to parents who are in

26:40

work. Okay. So they

26:42

often need this grandparent support as well. Thank

26:44

you. Paul, we're going to squeeze this one in very

26:47

quickly. If we can, Emma says, wonder if you could

26:49

answer my question. I'm on maternity leave with my second

26:51

child due to go back after Easter. My

26:53

first child is two turning three on the 6th of April.

26:55

We're looking for the 15 hours, but I'm not currently working

26:58

16 hours, which is part of the

27:00

criteria. Does this mean we won't get them? If

27:02

you're on that leave, does that or parental leave,

27:04

does that still qualify you? Yeah, you're still qualifying

27:06

if you do. If you

27:08

don't work 16 hours, there's also, there's

27:10

actually an income entitlement as well. So

27:13

actually it's the, it's a 16 hour average, but it

27:15

is actually based on income. So do check that out.

27:17

That's good news for Emma. Brilliant. Thank

27:20

you very much for your messages. Not to

27:22

throw a tantrum, but that is all that

27:24

we've got time for in today's Moneybox Live

27:26

on Child Care. Huge thanks to everybody who

27:28

took time out of some very busy days

27:30

to get in touch. And thank you to

27:32

our panel. We've been hearing from Megan Mika

27:34

Connor from Save the Children UK and Paul

27:36

Rhodes from the Money and Pensions Service. Now,

27:39

Paul Lewis will be here on Saturday, just

27:41

after the midday news with Moneybox. He'll

27:44

be talking about flood insurance after

27:46

last week's very heavy rain. Please

27:48

do flood our inbox with your stories.

27:50

How have you been affected by the

27:52

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27:55

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27:57

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27:59

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28:01

take a look at, you can email.

28:03

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28:06

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28:08

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28:13

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28:15

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