Money Box Live: School Wraparound Care

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and an extra hello to anybody listening to this Moneybox Live podcast on their way to pick up the kids. For some working parents, juggling the school run around the day job isn't just tough for the work life. balance, it can be hard on the bank balance too.

Parents typically pay more than £80 a week for a childminder and £66 a week on average for after-school club. That's according to the latest data from the charity Coram Family and Childcare. And it definitely adds up. It's at least £20 a day. So it's like £100 a week. But you know, that's £400 a month. This week, a new trial of free breakfast clubs launched at 750 schools across England, designed to make sure the children start the day with full tummies. But that's not the only reason.

The government says it'll save parents as much as £450 a year in childcare costs. Today on this podcast, we're asking about the cost of care for school-aged children. Over Easter, I went to the hideaway in Partington. Greater Manchester. It's a play centre where parents and guardians pay what they can, which means it's free to families who otherwise couldn't go. And over the noise of about 50-odd kids, I asked the adults how they manage. Oh, hello. Have you got a doll? Oh, that's lovely.

Everything is just so expensive. Do you use holiday clubs at all? No, it's too expensive. It's not worth it. Who are you here with? My son William, who's five, and my daughter Rosie, who's seven. Do you use any holiday clubs or wrappers? around care during the term time. We're quite fortunate I don't work at the moment so I'm at home full time with the kids. I mean when we total it up it doesn't really...

seem there's any point going to work for a lot of mums. Also the stress of having to find wraparound care. School holidays are very expensive, that's all I've got to say.

Well, listening to that are today's experts. I'm joined by Lydia Hodges, Head of the Coram Family and Child Care Charity, and Laura Souter, Director of Personal Finance at the investment platform AJ Bell. Hello. Hi there. Afternoon. Thank you both for being with us. Lydia, just explain.

Exactly what we mean by wraparound care and why that care is needed. So we're talking about care for school-aged children and we're talking about care before the school day and after school day. And I think one of the reasons why that's so important for parents is not... many people work nine to three which are school hours and particularly when you factor in your commute to work as well so it's really important for parents to be able to have somewhere safe for their children to be while they're

in work and getting to and from work as well. And we heard there, Lydia, that it can be really expensive. Now, your organisation has just published the latest data on the cost of wraparound care. What did you find? Yeah, well, we've been doing the childcare survey for 24 years now, and we look at childcare costs both in the early years and for before and after school as well. So we're looking at upwards of £66 a week on average.

Great Britain for parents who need to use that wraparound care and £81 if they want to use a child binder. So it's a lot of money to find across the week and across the month and the term and that's not including what you might need. to budget for the school holiday times as well. And you haven't published your findings for this year's school holiday costs. I know you do that later in the year. But what kind of prices were you seeing last year?

Well, what we found last year was that for the first time, if a family needed to use childcare through the whole of the school holidays, it would cost them over £1,000 for the summer holiday for the first time. So it's a considerable cost. Now, of course, a lot of parents will take some annual leave during that time. Not many people will need the full six weeks.

But there's also all of those other holiday periods to take into account. Easter that we've just come out the other side of and Christmas and then there are inset days and there are days here and there. So I think people think about childcare and they talk a lot about the early years.

years and what it costs to have a child in nursery and don't necessarily realise until you've done that yourself that actually those costs don't go away when the children go to school. In fact on that we've already had an email from Alice who says that she sat down with her husband last night with our spreadsheet.

of the summer holidays, working out what annual days I could take, what he could take, when we could actually have some time off together to be off as a family over the holidays, when I needed to use a childminder, when I needed to book schools out, holiday clubs. It's so stressful, says Alice.

Thank you very much for that. Lydia, what about availability for wraparound care and other care? Are there enough places? Well, I think it's very patchy. It's one of those things that can be different in different areas of Great Britain, but also across different regions of England as well. And we found that only around half of councils told us that they had. enough childcare for wraparound care for school-aged children, for the majority of children.

Unfortunately, that does get even more difficult if perhaps your child has special educational needs or disabilities and you need a very specific type of care and the right people with the right skills to look after your child. Thank you. to what that play centre said, it's hard for mums. I just want to play you Sophia, who changed her job to just work term time.

I just thought I can't keep paying all these fees all the time. And also just the worry of it really was having to worry to rush back to pick them up as well. How much were you paying for after school kind of wrap around childcare? Oh, gosh, it's at least £20 a day. So it's like £100 a week.

which is probably the cheaper end of the scale, I think, because it is an after-school club within the school. But, you know, that's £400 a month. So, you know, something had to give. So have you taken a significant hit, though, to your income by only working? working term time.

So I'm very fortunate that I do have like a little side hustle that I do. I run a mobile tea room called Sugar Tea Room. And so I am quite lucky that I do have a little bit of income coming from that as well. But when I looked at sort of the overall cost saving. less money on childcare, less money on transport. You know, now I can walk to work, I can just get a bus. And yes, I do earn a lot less than my project manager job, but I don't have the stress anymore.

So Sophia there says she's earning less, but it's sort of balancing out for her. Laura, these are family costs, aren't they? But do women typically bear more of them? Yeah, we do see that disproportionately when it comes to that discussion about whether it's worth working or whether it's worth dropping down your hours, we do see that it tends to be more women still that are those ones that go into the part-time jobs or stop working.

together and that has a knock-on effect and obviously you might be saving money on child care costs now but for those people when they're trying to re-enter the workforce they might find it harder they might find that they're going back on either the same position or more junior than before and on a potentially lower salary. So it does have a kind of knock-on effect and disproportionately more so on women still. It's not just the upfront cost. Well, education is a devolved issue.

care support differs across the nations. For example, both Wales and Scotland already have programmes that provide free breakfasts to children in some primary schools. But this week, that trial of Free Breakfast Club starts at 750 schools in England. hear from Ian next. He's a teacher with three children. He uses wraparound care himself, but he's worried about schools providing it.

I think that breakfast clubs are a great idea on one level because everyone knows that children learn better, think better, feel better when they go to school on a full stomach. I do worry that schools are not equipped. for that it's not in our dna and i worry that society is placing one other burden on already overstretched schools and the people who will lose in that situation are children if it's not thought through but as a parent with a child in primary school

is a little bit of you just like, oh, I'd save some money. There is, absolutely. But I'd also ask who are going to be the boots on the ground, the people that are providing this care? How are they going to be trained? How are they going to be accredited? How are they going to be monitored? Thanks to Ian for that. Lydia, lots of schools do already provide paid for breakfast clubs, sometimes through companies that come in and deliver it. Is this just an extension of that?

Well, I think it is different because these breakfast clubs are primarily about... as ian said providing a breakfast for those children so they they are ready to learn they're not hungry a lot of the wraparound care that already exists is open for a longer period so it might be open for a full hour before the school day and that can be really important

in terms of getting to work. Half an hour is quite short. Sometimes it's not enough time for somebody to drop the child off and get to work, particularly if you've got children in different schools or one in nursery, one in school, they're in different places. You've got to get here or there.

we see some really great wraparound provision both provided in schools but also provided by other sort of experts in the local area who the school buy in so there are models out there that are working really well what I think is important about this pilot is that it is a true test and learn pilot so that we do actually properly test it find out what's working where there needs to be some adjustments before we roll it out any further so that we

get it right for both children and for parents well the department for education told us 30 million pounds has been allocated for breakfast clubs and the wraparound child care program is delivering more places for school-aged children before and after school with more than 170

million pounds given to local authorities to deliver it. And we spoke to the rest of the nations who all told us that they're putting more money into wraparound care. Well, plenty of parents are contacting us about just how expensive Wraparound Care is. What do the childcare providers say? I've been speaking to Rebecca Jackson-Reese, who's Chief Executive at the Out of Schools Alliance, which speaks for childcare providers. in England.

What we've seen is parental changing working patterns, working from home, flexible working, which is absolutely important and brilliant for parents. But what it means is actually parents, numbers of parents who are using childcare and paid for childcare. specifically, which is what we've got in school-age childcare, those are dropping, which means it's really very difficult for providers to continue to stay open. Some of the reason that the parents might be

trying to avoid using paid for childcare where they can is the expense. And we've had a lot of emails from families who they like their childcare setting. They know the staff work hard. but they struggle with the cost of that childcare. Our childcare providers, particularly in this sector, are facing costs of delivery that are increasing between 15% and 35% every year. And they're desperately trying to insulate parents from those rises.

But those kind of rises are coming from the structural issues that we have, the way in which we are required to operate through law and also changes like the employer's national insurance and national minimum wage increases. You mentioned 15 and 30 percent.

increases in costs every year that can't be every year are you just reflecting the the increase in national insurance contributions this year i think what we've seen is a period of really high inflation and where we see that we think about the the food that providers are

serving two children we see that in inflationary increase in the rent that they pay to schools in terms of when our fuel bills and our electricity bills go up they're passed on across the board so it's not just the national insurance contributions it's not just the increases in national minimum and national living wage.

it cuts across every part of the delivery of that service. So when you add it all up, it is really, really impacting any margins that these providers have got. Rebecca Jackson-Reese there from the Out of Schools Alliance.

heard about why costs are rising but what help is there for parents to kind of mitigate those costs? Yeah there is support out there so for anyone out there thinking that it's just unaffordable there is help out there so I think the the big scheme that would apply

to lots of people is tax free childcare, which I will acknowledge up front has a terrible name that doesn't really explain what it does. But if it was branded more as top up for childcare costs or free money for childcare costs, I think... more people would claim it free money is always good branding isn't it um so this works where for every eight pounds that you pay into the account the government will pay in

and that's up to £500 every three months, so £2,000 a year, and that's per child up to the age of 11. So you can claim multiple of that if you have multiple children. You can also claim a higher... amount, £4,000 a year up to the age of 18 if the child is disabled. Now lots of people will think of using this for nursery costs but actually because it can be used up to the age of 11 it can be used for after

school clubs, play schemes, child minders. The provider just has to be signed up to the scheme for you to be able to use it. So you can definitely check with your provider. There are a few caveats. You need to both be working. So both parents need to be working.

earning minimum wage for 16 hours a week. And if you earn more than £100,000 a year, either of you, after pension contributions, then you can't use it. It's quite interesting, actually, because more than half a million families used tax-free childcare.

in December. And as you say, most of those will have been for nursery or for childminder costs. But HMRC's numbers show that the number of families using the scheme is rising overall. It does fall as children get older. So in December last year, there were about 36,500.

and six year olds benefiting from it. By age 10, it was down to just under 12,000 kids. But a lot of older children will still be doing football camps or drama school or other things that parents could potentially be saving money on. Yeah, and I think it's just that real lack of awareness of a how the scheme works and that it's available. And then particularly that it has a use for older children and that it extends to things like you say of, you know, activity clubs, football clubs.

after school clubs. And so I think that there needs to be a bit more work done in kind of making people aware of how they can use it and how they can set up that account. And it's not every extracurricular setting, though, I should say, as you say, they do have to be registered with Ofsted.

HMRC say that eligible working parents across the UK can apply for tax-free childcare via gov.uk. And they pointed out it takes less than 20 minutes to sign up for an account. So you could sort it out now ahead of that long summer break.

Laura, another way parents can get help with childcare is through universal credit. What's available there? Yeah, so if you're on Universal Credit and you're working or have a job offer, then you can get up to 85% of your childcare costs back. That's up to a limit. It's just over £1,000 for one child or almost £1,800.

for two or more children. And that I think some people tend to think of again for nursery costs, but that includes breakfast, after school, holiday clubs, child minders. So that's definitely one that's worth looking into. I should just...

note that you can't use tax-free childcare and that universal credit support at the same time so if you're in that situation you would definitely want to check which would be more beneficial for you and there's a checker on the government's website where you can enter in your details

And it will tell you which scheme will give you more support. And briefly, if you can, Laura, another option that might help some parents is the right to unpaid parental leave. Yes. So this is a great provision that, again, just isn't really that known about. parents. So you're entitled to 18 weeks of leave for each child up to their 18th birthday. You can take up to four weeks per child a year. You take it in whole weeks.

There's not a huge amount of criteria around it. You have to have worked somewhere for a year or more. You have to give them 21 days notice that you want to take this leave and your employer can only under certain circumstances deny you this leave.

leave and if they do then they have to suggest alternative dates that you could take it so great for flexibility but as you say it is unpaid so financially that might not be a help for some people but if you're thinking about that long summer holiday and weighing up whether those childcare costs are worth you working, it might be a good option in there.

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Thank you. OK, well, in something that won't be complicated at all, Laura is now on the phone. We're going to have two Lauras and Lydia. Laura, thanks for being with us. Hello.

Hello. So you have a six-year-old with autism. What's your experience of wraparound care? Our six-year-old, who's autistic, much prefers smaller, more structured school clubs. He finds... there's two choices at his school which is great one is smaller more structured which is a bit more expensive or there's an unstructured option but yeah he he much prefers like

not being completely overwhelmed by too many people but we are super lucky to pick him up twice a week because we're both part-time so we share the after-school wraparound so that's really positive. That is very positive. But does that mean that you end up paying more for the care you do use, the smaller, more structured clubs? Yes.

They went on sale yesterday and so we had a look and it's for an hour and there's two different clubs that we've signed up for. One is like £80 the rest of the term but this is London and then the other one's £100.

But the unstructured option is longer and it's the same price or slightly cheaper. We just worked it out. But yeah, it's because there's more staff running the smaller clubs. He just much prefers... being in a smaller group and not being free-flowing play but that's that's that's his personality but it's the same for holiday clubs as well because I like planning ahead I don't have a spreadsheet however I'm thinking about the six weeks we've got off and how we're going to manage that

and looking at clubs and trying to find friends are going to the same club so it's familiar because he likes familiarity and small and structured so yeah plotting that and thinking about where he'd be really happy but they do tend to be more expensive for the one in the local um sports center which lots of friends do go to it's quite unstructured but it's quite affordable so that's the

disadvantaged, I think, that he would not like that at all. Laura, thank you so much for joining us and explaining not just the financial differences, but the sort of exactly what you need to look for, how you make it work. Thanks for your time. Lydia, that is just one example. And children can obviously have really different needs. Overall, though, is there enough wraparound care for children who have special educational needs and disabilities?

Well, I think your caller there really hit the nail on the head with their situation, which what we see far too often, I think, is that there will be a one-size-fits-all or one-offer. or there will be an explanation that there is this specific club which is for the children with special educational needs and disabilities.

That's not inclusion. That's not what we want for those children. Those children should have the exact same choice as any other child and to have their needs met in a situation that is best for them, that's right for them, that's fun for them. actually, that they get the same things out of it. So I think when we look at it, we know that we're not quite there yet in terms of there being enough wraparound childcare for all children. We know that we're definitely not there.

yet in terms of that being right for children with special educational needs and disabilities and we're really very far off being at a place where those children have the same choice as other children and those parents have the same choice and that they're not sort of

adversely penalised by having to pay for something that's more expensive just in order for it to be right for them and their child. So is it usually the way that where they can find that after school, that wraparound care, they do end up paying more?

I think it can be the case, yeah, or it can just be that that ends up not being an option for them because there isn't the inclusivity and there isn't the options that are right for them. We see some great examples and I've spoken to some wonderful... providers recently who actually just everything that they do is designed around being inclusive for all children to access. And that's a really important part of what they do. But I think, you know, certainly as you're here.

there are parents who for them that experience is quite different and maybe they are having to do lots more of this juggling between family members, between parents, shift parenting, using grandparents because there aren't the same options for them. And Laura Souter, our panellist, you mentioned some of the extra financial support that might be available to parents in this situation.

Yeah, so with tax-free childcare, if your child is disabled, then you can claim up to £4,000 a year per child for that. And you can get that up to the age of 18. So there is a bit more support for these parents.

But, of course, that's only useful if you can find the registered provider that's offering the kind of care that you want. And, of course, if you know about it. So do tell anybody who might not be listening who might benefit from this about the scheme. Let's talk to another parent now. Annette is a freelance journalist. is on the phone from central London. Annette, hello.

Hello. Now you have worked out a solution to the high costs. We will talk about that. But just before we do, when we chatted before the programme, you told me how much you pay for babysitting and it blew my mind. Tell us what you pay for babysitting in central London. Yes, I'm a single parent living in central London and it's about £20 to £25 an hour for a babysitter now in central London. It may be different other places in the UK. It definitely is. So quite a lot.

I used to do it for a teller and a pizza. Those days are gone. Tell me then about the solution to wrap around care that you found. You've built a network where you share the load. Yes. So as you know, they always say it takes a village, but I found the village to be other parents. And we do something which I call swapsies, where we help each other with the childcare. That could be an hour after school.

Or it could be we have set times, but we have obviously built up a community and that can take time, but we help each other, which I think is really nice. It's lovely. How much do you think you save as a result? Oh, well, it's probably between 20 to 40 pounds at least a week if I'm having a couple of hours. But sometimes it's more than that. So sometimes it's three hours or after school. So it really depends. Now you already work part time. Does that make the juggle easier?

Not really. I still think there's lots, you know, for example, the wraparound care in my son's school, it finishes at quarter to five. So even if you're working later. you're still it's still not enough you know so I think it's a real juggle and also the other thing is is weekends like sometimes I'll need to do things on weekends and then you get stuck there so it's not just the weekdays

Well, thank you so much for telling us about how you've built a village of neighbours and other parents, Annette. Thank you so much for joining us on the programme. Lydia, a real community feel there. We should say there are important safety concerns to think about, aren't there? kind of informal cover, you don't have the reassurance that all the adults have been checked, for example.

I mean, what a beautiful thing to do. What a lovely thing to have done. It must be so nice. And a community for those parents that's about supporting each other, I'm sure, and friendships for life. for some of those children. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, I'm sure that for Annette, you know, she knows those other mums and dads and she's comfortable with it, but certainly for anybody listening...

Any parent knows this, that you want to be certain of the people who are looking after the most precious people in your life. And that's different, clearly, from registered childcare providers who are registered with Ofsted, who've been through training. who you know are vetted and you know are safe to look after your children. But of course there's also the thing about certainty, because I've worked with networks of parents like that before. and it's lovely but

It also, there's not a contract in place there. So if somebody, you might have an informal relationship and at the last minute they say, oh, I'm really sorry, but I can't do it because something's come up and then you're left a little bit stranded.

is a lovely thing if you can do it. As I say, we see parents doing all sorts of things to try and bring those costs down and to make things work. It's important to take all of those considerations in mind. I think we should also take a moment and just acknowledge the source of a huge...

amount of wraparound care which is grandparents we've had an email from victoria who says in the days when i was a mother to a primary age child i paid a great proportion of my wage to provide care whilst i worked now as a grandma i have provided care to my grandchildren both primary

to save their working parents some of the cost. Victoria, thank you so much for sharing that with us. I'm sure there are a lot of grandparents listening who do the same. Laura, for anyone listening who is already clenching their teeth, brushing up on their spreadsheets, thinking about...

thought of getting through the term and then that summer holiday juggle and the potential financial fallout. What's your main piece of advice for them?

Well, I am part of the spreadsheet crew, which probably isn't a huge surprise. But I appreciate that that isn't everyone's bag. But I think the main thing is... planning ahead because that is how you're going to access the more affordable holiday clubs or after school clubs that's how you're going to get your kids into the the ones that you want and also if you apply for tax-free child care if you're eligible and you think that might work for you. You can pay money in now.

to and through the summer months and that helps to spread the cost of it because I think partly for people it's that six weeks of summer holidays where they're shelling out money every day and every week for those childcare costs. So if you can spread the cost and get some of that government support.

on top, then that should make the summer a little bit sunnier. Because it's not just the childcare, it's the days out as well. And it all soon adds up, doesn't it? Well, there's no after school club for the Moneybox Live podcast. So that is all we have time for. Huge thanks to everybody who shared their story. today and thank you as always to our experts. I was joined by Laura Souter from AJ Bell and Lydia Hodges from Coram Family and Childcare.

Paul Lewis will be back with Moneybox at midday on Saturday. He'll be looking at how hard it can be to deal with a loved one's finances after a bereavement. If you've struggled with banks and forms and admin, then do get in touch and let us know. And those are the details if there are any other money stories you want us to take a look at.

In this podcast, the producer was Sarah Rogers, the studio manager Ben Houghton, production coordinator Catherine Lund. Our editor is Jess Quayle. I'm Felicity Hanna and this was a BBC News money and work production for BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Robin Ince. And I'm Brian Cox. And we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. In this series, we're going to have a planet off. We decided it was time to go cosmic, so we are going to do Jupiter!

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