We thought we should respond to the Daily Mail’s article entitled:

‘Exorbitant’ cost of childcare is more than women’s wages in further blow to cost of living, analysis shows

• Cost of living crisis has seen energy bills skyrocket – while wages stagnate
• Childcare fees have soared during pandemic after nurseries were forced to shut
• And families are now paying £12.52 an hour for an after-school club or activity

You can read the full article here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10458393/Exorbitant-cost-childcare-womens-wages-analysis-shows.html#comments

What we think

Dramatic headlines attract attention, but seriously £12.52? I think the .52 gives the impression that they haven’t really made it up, but they’ve done some serious research.

I went for a pint yesterday, cost me £4.30 and it was really nice, that same pint in a pub in London would on average cost me 37% more. Where I’m going with this I hear you ask?

We’ll I don’t doubt that there is childcare out there somewhere that charges £12.00+ put we certainly don’t see that as an average and bear in mind the large number of wraparound care providers that use our Childcare online Booking system, the fact is the average is £4.50, but to add 178% in order to make it £12.52 seems unrealistic even for an after school club in London as the Daily Mail has stated.

We’re all aware that cost of living varies, it costs far more to rent a property to run a private after school in London then it would in Devon, but isn’t it all relative?

Our system analysis also shows very little increase over the last 12 months and the average has levelled at £4.50 and if you ask us there is one very simple answer. Private clubs are run by very hard working entrepreneurs that are obviously well aware of increases in the cost of living and do their bit to help out and not increase their rates. We did it ourselves during the pandemic, we removed our minimum fee, it cost us over £18,000, but we did it because our clubs weren’t able to run. Our booking system is transaction based and we haven’t increased this either, in fact our only plans are to reduce the rate in future as the number of users increase.

The cost of living continues to increase and it’s all doom and gloom but small businesses like our childcare providers clearly try and do their bit to soften the blow and help the hard working parents whether they’re in London or Devon. I’m sure they’d all like to charge an 178% more per hour, even if they are worth it, every single one of them, but it seems to us that they’re trying to provide the best care at a very reasonable price to help parents and do their bit to keep the economy going.

We’d love to know what you think of the Daily Mail comment.