Good morning. Everything is expensive. Food is expensive, electricity and gas are expensive, rent and mortgages are expensive, transportation is expensive. But parents in the UK with children under the age of three are grappling with another rapidly rising cost: childcare. A report by the Guardian has found that childcare fees are expected to rise by as much as 19% in the new year. Sarah, an office worker from Somerset, told the Guardian that the rise in fees make her “feel sick”, saying: “Our electric bill has just ticked over in to a higher rate, already fuel and food bills are soaring, then the nursery fee goes up. I have no spare cash at the end of the month.”
For years, those in the sector have been warning that early childcare provisions are on the brink of collapse. A recruitment crisis, chronic under-investment by the government and increasing costs have left the industry struggling to survive – inflation and the onrushing recession have only exacerbated the problem. The number of active providers in England has been steadily falling since 2015 and, like many other parts of the social infrastructure of this country, a lack of funding has meant that those left cannot pay staff much more than minimum wage (which the government has increased, while simultaneously making no increase to childcare subsidies). To make up the shortfall, many providers have raised their fees, making life more difficult for many families.
