Access to Childcare Fund: phase 2 - evaluation report

7. Achieving affordable childcare

Summary:

• All projects had put in place measures that made their services more affordable for families and feedback on this was broadly positive.
• The main way this was achieved was via fully funded or subsidised places. This was seen as especially important for families of children with ASN, where services would normally be very expensive. Adapting payment plans or booking options could also increase affordability (e.g., spreading out payments or only charging for the hours used).
• When projects were able to minimise travel costs for families traveling to provision, this removed a further financial barrier to access, particularly in rural areas. This was done by providing transport directly or financially supporting families with paying for transport themselves, although projects faced their own financial barriers in doing so.
• Remaining barriers to providing affordable services included limits on subsidies of SACC fees (meaning some were still difficult for families to afford) and concerns around the long-term sustainability of funding.

All projects had put in place measures that made their services more affordable for families, and feedback on this from the families taking part in the evaluation was broadly positive. While this was mainly achieved through creating fully funded or subsidised places, other elements had also increased affordability. These included: adapting payment plans or booking options and reducing or removing travel costs.

Funded places

Every project did this to an extent, ranging from offering fully-funded to partially-funded places, and from providing universally funded provision to a mix of funded and paid-for places. There was widespread agreement among project leads and stakeholders that, through doing this, projects generally succeeded in making provision more affordable to families. This was supported by family interviews, with parents typically saying they would not be able to use the services to the same extent, or at all, otherwise. This was viewed as particularly impactful given the rising cost of living:

“Yes, [the subsidy made] a big difference […] it makes it workable. I think if it had been more then I would have cut him down to one day […] with the cost of living, I don’t think I could have continued with it.” (Parent)

Subsidised places were especially important for families of children with ASN where services would normally be very expensive, due to factors such as the staffing ratios required, making affordability of care even more of a barrier.

While fully funded places were guaranteed to remove financial barriers to all families, partially funded places could also be used to make childcare more affordable when used in the right ways, such as assessing how much families could afford and subsidising accordingly. SHIP achieved this by asking about household income in their booking form to inform the cost of childcare, while one family at St Mirin’s were originally paying for an after-school service, but were offered access to the breakfast club for free because the child had a need for it, but they wouldn’t have been able to afford it otherwise.

However, despite subsidised places, there were examples of financial barriers to accessing provision which remained. Partially funded places could still prove expensive. For example, one stakeholder thought that, despite offering subsidised places, cost was still the main barrier for families. A family involved with the same project felt similarly, and would prefer to send their child to the project more often if it was more affordable for them.

Enablers and barriers to providing funded places

There were concerns about the sustainability of offering funded places (and affordable childcare more generally). There were strong views that providing free or subsidised places is reliant on continued funding and, when it is provided for a limited amount of time, was only a short-term solution. This was backed up by families saying that, when the funding stops, they will likely be unable to continue using the provision as much, if at all. One project had already experienced families disengaging from their project when the second round of ACF funding was still uncertain. They highlighted that it was difficult to re-engage these families, and that certainty and consistency around funding was important for parents making long-term arrangements. However, notably, when projects supported parents to establish or progress their careers (how this outcome was achieved is discussed further in the next chapter), there was evidence that this was a way in which projects could help families to be more able to afford provision in the longer term.

Payment plans

When there was a cost attached to provision, there were some examples of payment plans or flexible booking systems that helped to make this more affordable for families. One example of this was giving parents the ability to spread out payments instead of paying a large sum upfront. One family explained that having clear and detailed information helped them to budget:

“They spread the cost throughout the year, which I felt was more manageable for me [...] Everything was itemised and explained on the sheet… It was all really informative and I was able to work it out for the whole year and plan our finances accordingly, so that was a good help.” (Parent)

As mentioned previously, families benefitted when projects only charged for the hours of provision accessed and this helped to minimise costs for families who did not need to use all the available hours of provision. Similarly, a parent using a childminder pointed out that she was not asked to pay for childcare while she was in between jobs in order to keep her space.

Enablers and barriers to providing affordable payment plans

Projects had to have a financial cushion in order to absorb the changes in income associated with providing flexible approaches, for example when parents were not charged for sessions they booked but did not attend.

Addressing travel costs

In some cases, families incurred indirect costs, primarily travel costs, accessing provision. This was particularly the case in rural areas:

“It [transport] is a massive issue [here], and the issue has become significant with us because of the drop in childminders […] We have got families travelling [far] every day, and transport costs are huge now. With the whole cost going up as it has, it has become a bigger and bigger issue, even for families on an okay income.” (Project lead)

When projects included transport as part of their service, this typically saved families money. For example, one family living in a rural area said they only had one other after-school childcare option, but that they would have had to pay for a taxi to send their children there:

“I’d have had to pay for an independent taxi company to pick them up from school to take them to the other setting … it would not have been worth it financially, it would have been an absolute nightmare.” (Parent)

One rural project also gave an example of a family who were unable to attend due to not being able to afford the petrol costs. The project had been able to source some funding to cover the costs and enable them to attend:

“For instance, we had a family last year who had become entitled to the free childcare but didn’t have transport to get the child to the facility. So, after a whole day phoning round, we managed to find a small pot of money…to pay for the petrol for this child to actually come for the free childcare they were entitled to.” (Project lead)