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Cuts, falling family incomes and the shift to academy status are threatening the viability of many out-of-school childcare projects
With luck, the working parents of school age children will have muddled through the summer holiday childcare challenge. Now another challenge approaches: the increasingly fragile state of out-of-school services such as breakfast and after-school clubs, after-school and holiday schemes.
According to a report by the charity 4Children, these services face "serious potential threats to [their] future viability" as a result of spending cuts and falling parental income.
One in 10 childcare provider respondents to the survey said they may have to shut down this year, while a further 15% said their survival hangs in the balance as they await funding decisions. This, says the report, is primarily a reflection of worsening economic conditions: many parents with shrinking disposable income simply cannot afford to pay contributions to out-of-school care, even "affordable" care provided by charities and volunteers at less than cost price. Some parents are changing their working patterns to avoid childcare costs, says the report, while younger children are walking home from school alone, presumably to empty homes.
At first sight, the threat to these services is not directly linked to the cuts. Three quarters of the providers surveyed do not receive any funding from the local authority or schools (although of those that did over half were losing over 25% of their income from the council this year). But it would be wrong to regard this as a crisis that cuts had no part in creating, or the state no role in ameliorating. As I've written before, in relation to the scouts, the cuts have shone a light on the previously hidden state subsidies of big society-style enterprises, and out-of school clubs it would seem, are no different.
The most striking example of this is what the 4Children report identifies as the "unprecedented rise in running costs experienced by some providers as a result of changes to local charging policy." It would seem some councils and schools once turned a blind eye to rents for out of school club premises (or at least charged well below market rate and kept rent rises under control). Presumably this was partly because they could afford to; and partly an acknowledgement of the wider social value such services provided, not least the safety, social development and wellbeing of participating children, particularly those with troubled or unstable family backgrounds.
However, it would seem the financial disciplines that have accompanied the transition of schools to academy status, coupled with the desperate pressures of shrinking council budgets suggest a much business-like - some might say short-sighted - approach to the use of these premises is taking hold. Rents are soaring for some schemes, just as they have done over the past few months for many scout troops based in municipal-owned premises. Take this extraordinary anecdote in the 4Children report:
"There are many worries this year. Last year, one school decided they would increase our rent from nil to £34,000 per year. This wasn't even our income, let alone minus wages and so on. Three of the other schools we work in have increased their rent by 66%. We just don't know how we will be affected."
Responding to financial pressure is one thing, but that sounds like a school that just doesn't sound interested in an out-of-school childcare arrangement on its premises at all. One in ten providers said their biggest concerns for the year ahead were "changes to the way education is organised locally with more academies and free schools."Anne Longfield, chief executive of 4Children, has urged schools and councils to think more strategically about how they can make out-of-school services more viable and sustainable:
"Out of school childcare provides crucial support to hundreds of thousands of parents and important opportunities for older children. We urge local authorities and schools to think twice before hiking up running costs, such as rent, and carefully consider the wider impact on parents who rely on out of school childcare to allow them to work."
Maybe they will. For now it looks like another cut that will impact most harshly on the most vulnerable families and young people.• Has your local out-of-school childcare service been hit by cuts or rent rises? Report it on our interactive Cutswatch map.
- Public sector cuts
- Schools
- Children
- Young people
- Childcare
- Voluntary sector
- Charities
- Local government
Patrick Butler
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