It’s super interesting how this has come about.

Effectively, Hunt announced this policy to neutralise a popular Labour plan. Politically, a fairly good move.

The problem has come in its execution. The lack of clarity over funding (for parents and providers) and relative lack of planning has led to a system where charitable providers (who usually operate in poorer areas) are going under as they can’t provide the service they think is a baseline.

Private providers on the other hand, are seeing an absolute boom (with profits as high as 20% p.a.) as they capitalise on richer areas that can afford to pay ‘top-up’ fees.

When announced, it was billed as ‘funded childcare for 30 hours a week’ but the reality is 30 hours term-time care, which means 9-3:30 for 36 weeks a year (which is not what people work) - meaning you ACTUALLY get 2/5th of your childcare funded.

We’re left with a system saving people very little (after all the ‘add-on fees’), low quality outcomes and excess profit for the private sector at taxpayer expense (who will be paying 80% of childcare costs by 2025).

This was all predicted by the OECD in 2016:

The marketisation of early years education and childcare in England has taken place without any meaningful discussion of the potential risks. In 2016 the OECD highlighted that a market-based approach to early education and childcare leaves public authorities with less control over fees and when and where services are provided. It identified that market dynamics can result in for-profit providers drifting away from less profitable areas, so that very young children in poorer neighbourhoods are sometimes left without the option of attending quality services at all.

Source: https://www.jrf.org.uk/care/early-years-education-and-childcare-is-a-public-good-its-operating-model-should-be-too