PROVIDING increased support for parents is “a bit of a conundrum” as businesses tend to push back against family-friendly measures, the Chief Minister has said.
The cost of childcare is one of many factors making life more expensive for Islanders discussed by an animated audience at All Island Media’s recent Question Time event.
Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham said childcare was “one of the things people have been struggling with most”. He added that his government had introduced 15 hours of free nursery care for two-to-three-year-olds as part of December’s Budget debate in a bid to help families.
He said that future plans could see more financial support provided for nursery care.
“Family-friendly legislation is developing more along that direction,” he said. “But of course, that then gets challenged by industry bodies who say we are just making it harder and more expensive for businesses.
“So it’s a bit of a conundrum, but yes, we are heading in that direction to provide more financial support for childcare.”
Co-op chief executive Mark Cox said there was “absolutely” a need for “more support for young mothers”.
He added: “Our colleagues constantly talk about that battle around how many hours should they be working versus the cost of childcare. There is a balance there.”
But “structurally”, he said, it was the number of nursery places that caused a problem.
“Whatever support government want to [provide], we’ve got to make sure there is enough provision on-Island to be able to deliver that. If we could do that as a government, that would be great.”
Meanwhile, several nurseries only allow children to take on a full-time place. This meant that Consumer Council chair Carl Walker had had to speak to a mother who found that in order to take up the free nursery hours, she had to sign up her child for a full-time place – and pay for the remaining hours.
“One of [the nurseries] was asking her to pay upfront and then claim back those free hours, and she said she just doesn’t have the capital, the reserves, sloshing around in her bank account to be able to pay out those thousands of pounds and then claim it back.”
The Chief Minister added that the Child Care Trust “stepped up” to support the woman, but admitted this was “an important point that we missed”.
