Spring Budget 2023

Werewolf said:
The only thing is most of the best ways to teach a very young child is to do it through "play",
Click to expand...
That's how they pretty much do it in Finland as far as I can tell and they don't start formal schooling until 7.

Then again I think the maximum parents can be charged for the years upontil that point is about €300 a month with some free hours iirc.

No standardised continual testing and not a heap ton of homework either and yet as a nation they outperform the UK in OECD Pisa tests.

I guess that may be the difference between a capitalist country that invests in its society as opposed to the UK which seems to be aiming more and more for oligarchic capitalism.
 
adidan said:
That's how they pretty much do it in Finland as far as I can tell and they don't start formal schooling until 7.

Then again I think the maximum parents can be charged for the years upontil that point is about €300 a month with some free hours iirc.

No standardised continual testing and not a heap ton of homework either and yet as a nation they outperform the UK in OECD Pisa tests.

I guess that may be the difference between a capitalist country that invests in its society as opposed to the UK which seems to be aiming more and more for oligarchic capitalism.
Click to expand...

The UK has abolished continual testing too and homework in the primary school ages is basically non-existent now.

I agree with your other points though
 
throwaway4372 said:
that isn't really the point, many people are single at various times in their life for all sorts of reasons.

single people exist and the system should consider them a lot more than it does.
Click to expand...

Couples with children are equally shafted as single people. I personally lose at least 15K P.A that I could be putting into pension or other things because I only work 3.5 days a week. Women also lose years of career progression as a result. People fail to understand that when my children are older their taxes will be paying for a lady to wipe your bum when you are on your last legs. It is all a massive pyramid scheme if it wasn't that obvious. Hence why all this foreign labour from Warsaw Pact countries was great because the UK could snatch people from other countries who have paid into their education for free and get them paying English pensioners wages at the expense of their economies.

A single person might be annoyed in the short term. They instantly forget who will be paying their state pension and hospital bills when they get old.

The only people who benefit massively are couples who both work and have no kids.
 
Last edited:
danlightbulb said:
Looking after kids is hard work yes, but does not require training and development beyond a basic competence level. It might be un-pc to say that but it's true. It should be a low cost service. And those who staff the nurseries should be able to survive quite well on those lower earnings, if we had correctly functioning social housing etc.
Click to expand...

Perhaps you could have benefited from some early years education....

danlightbulb said:
The reason I went into engineering instead of childcare is because it's a career that has a need for a higher level of education, ongoing training and progression. I'm sorry, but early years childcare does not have that need.
Click to expand...

danlightbulb said:
We're diluting the value of sectors that genuinely require skilled people, such as engineering, by having many parts of the service sector trying to achieve the same for little added value but more cost.
Click to expand...

Sounds a little like snobbery to me - "I'm an engineer so am significantly better than you" /end Harry Enfield.
 
throwaway4372 said:
everything shafts single people. buy a house on your own, car on your own, bills on your own, etc. Basically have to earn more than double the average salary just to survive.
Click to expand...

Well that's not true... It's all dependant on your location - you should add that.

adam cool dude said:
Why would you want to be single all your life though? Mentally I would break down at that thought.
Click to expand...

Some people enjoy being single and don't require company in the form of a partner for mental/emotional needs like yourself.
 
Richie said:
Perhaps you could have benefited from some early years education....





Sounds a little like snobbery to me - "I'm an engineer so am significantly better than you" /end Harry Enfield.
Click to expand...
Fortunately I'm a chartered engineer and disagree with him so we're not all that bad!
 
throwaway4372 said:
that isn't really the point, many people are single at various times in their life for all sorts of reasons.

single people exist and the system should consider them a lot more than it does.
Click to expand...
Indeed, people assume its a choice, and whilst there is choices in life that can lead someone to be single, it isnt necessarily that they planned to live as a singleton. It seems the singleton discrimination exists at the top of the pay scale as much as it does at the bottom.
 
Last edited:
adam cool dude said:
Couples with children are equally shafted as single people. I personally lose at least 15K P.A that I could be putting into pension or other things because I only work 3.5 days a week. Women also lose years of career progression as a result. People fail to understand that when my children are older their taxes will be paying for a lady to wipe your bum when you are on your last legs. It is all a massive pyramid scheme if it wasn't that obvious. Hence why all this foreign labour from Warsaw Pact countries was great because the UK could snatch people from other countries who have paid into their education for free and get them paying English pensioners wages at the expense of their economies.

A single person might be annoyed in the short term. They instantly forget who will be paying their state pension and hospital bills when they get old.

The only people who benefit massively are couples who both work and have no kids.
Click to expand...

Probably no one!

No state pension and robots for that.

The pyramid is doing a 180.

Capitalism is starting to creak. I don't think that's dramatic. More money is funneled to the super rich the less people will have kids.
The state burden goes up and up.

Short term. Immigration can help us. But if every country needs immigrants? No immigrants.


No one can stop the decline in birthrates. Its at least partly due to the ever increasing cost of living and wages not able to keep up.


Eventually, something has to give.
 
ci_newman said:
The UK has abolished continual testing too and homework in the primary school ages is basically non-existent now.

I agree with your other points though
Click to expand...
I wasn't aware of this, thanks.

As an outsider it just seems extremely expensive to try and bring up kids while working nowadays.
 
adam cool dude said:
Couples with children are equally shafted as single people. I personally lose at least 15K P.A that I could be putting into pension or other things because I only work 3.5 days a week. Women also lose years of career progression as a result. People fail to understand that when my children are older their taxes will be paying for a lady to wipe your bum when you are on your last legs. It is all a massive pyramid scheme if it wasn't that obvious. Hence why all this foreign labour from Warsaw Pact countries was great because the UK could snatch people from other countries who have paid into their education for free and get them paying English pensioners wages at the expense of their economies.

A single person might be annoyed in the short term. They instantly forget who will be paying their state pension and hospital bills when they get old.

The only people who benefit massively are couples who both work and have no kids.
Click to expand...
Your post also highlights the merit of migrating workers.
 
adidan said:
I wasn't aware of this, thanks.

As an outsider it just seems extremely expensive to try and bring up kids while working nowadays.
Click to expand...
The intent is to allow women and men to equally do well in their careers and earn more.

A lot of folk focus on people content(or not) with earning minimum wage/not willing to push themselves to bigger and more rewarding things. Then of course it is a fairly simple equation; stay at home...
 
dLockers said:
Why don't these nurseries get a bit of better business acumen though? I mean it isn't a stretch to charge a top-up.

With a 4 to 1 ratio as well that is still £17.76 an hour - and the staff are often young/NMW for their age group...?
Click to expand...

Its 3 to 1 for under 2s so they get £13.32 per carer. Wages even at NMW, NI, Building, insurance etc and there wont be much left if any.

Sadly the UK have made it illegal for nurseries to charge more/top ups. They have the choice to either accept the voucher for 30 hours free or not. Which is why some nurseries dont accept free places or other ones limit it and then charge more to the paying people to offset their loses on the free places.

The whole system needs an overhaul tbh. Hence why this announcement means nothing if the free nursery places dont come available.
 
dLockers said:
Because I was paying £7/hr for childcare, then £7.50 and as of 1st April - £8/hr. And I know for sure that of the 10 or so staff, 5 or 6 are youfff on appreticechips etc. and the owners husband is on pay roll, her sis/niece etc...

They now rent a school premises at ultra low cost too...

Nurseries not being profitable is a cop out IMHO. Maybe it is region dependant.
Click to expand...

No I said nurseries arent profitable at the £4.44 that the Govt pays them per child for the 30 free hours. And quite often the nurseries then charge people like you the extra to compensate. Lets say a nursery only needs to charge £6 to make a profit per child but it has 15 free child places at £4.44 so it charges the paying parents of the other 15 kids £7.50 for their child to average out at £6.

in affect a lot of parents are subsidising free places with what they pay.
 
Last edited:
Uther said:
One thing I've never had to look in to, but why is child care so expensive in this country compared to a lot of others?
Click to expand...

We pay some of the lowest rates in Govt support and some of the lowest child to carer ratios. A lot of other countries allow 6 kids per carer or more.
 
n111ck said:
lol what do you think the 30 free hours equates to?
Click to expand...

peanuts compared with other countries and how much they put in. The two other issues in this country are child ratios and property prices. France allows 8-10 kids per carer for the under 2s. Compare that with 3 to 1 in the UK. And since 82% of the running costs of a nursery is labour related it doesnt take a genius to see why ours costs . In Germany (heavily subsidised) it costs 1% of average household income compared with 22% here.
 
Uther said:
One thing I've never had to look in to, but why is child care so expensive in this country compared to a lot of others?
Click to expand...

Greebo said:
We pay some of the lowest rates in Govt support and some of the lowest child to carer ratios. A lot of other countries allow 6 kids per carer or more.
Click to expand...
Most likely it's due to the hilariously stupendous amount that the state pension is costing the Govt. When it came about people only lived for around 10 years after retirment age. That doesn't hold true anymore. It needs to be aboloshed for new births and every child given £5k to be put in a SIPP to be redeemed at a pensionable age. However no party in power is ever going to do that so it's going to continue to cost a fortune especially as people live longer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom