Well its not when the question asked is. "why is childcare so expensive in the UK" is it?
Spring Budget 2023
- Thread starter doodah
- Start date
Well its not when the question asked is. "why is childcare so expensive in the UK" is it?
Well its not when the question asked is. "why is childcare so expensive in the UK" is it?
Your posts seemed to suggest that the French system was superior some how but we are agreed the French system is crap and not comparable.
You have any evidence it doesn't work in the countries that use higher ratios? Any evidence that the lower UK ratios produce better outcomes?
Lol you dont need evidence if you've had kids.
1 person looking after 10 one years old would be chaos and I personally wouldn't even class that as baby sitting let alone a paid nursery service.
Do people in Germany, France, Italy, Denmark, etc. who have their children in these classes not have kids? Why do they not realise it's the bun fire you're convinced - apparently in the absence of any evidence - that it must be?
10 is higher than most countries comparable to the UK allow. But there are countries that do this, so if it's as bad as you say it should be easy to find evidence.
Maybe standards in the EU are a lot lower because parents have much lower expectations?
I personally wouldn't pay for a 10-1 ratio nursery service regardless of how cheap it is - would anyone on here with kids accept that level?
Regardless the question was why are nurseries cheaper in Europe and the answer is because they have substantially less staff - if ratios were reduced here then the cost would be similar.
I don't believe there's anything that suggests that true. Parents here in Germany don't seem any less concerned about the quality of childcare their children get than in England. If anything, expectations are higher.
Like I said, in most comparable countries, 10-to-1 isn't legal. 8 to 1 or 6 to 1 are more common, complicated by differences in the number of less qualified support staff present.
Right, and the UK has a problem with both availability and cost of childcare as a result. For me, if you're looking at other comparable countries and it seems on the face of it like they're doing it better I think you need to look carefully at how they're doing it and figure out whether we can learn from it and improve. Maybe it turns out that the UK's lower ratios are worth of it in terms of better outcomes for children, I don't know. But fact-free emotional appeals like groundless claims anyone with kids would "know" it wouldn't work when that's easily proven wrong by the simple fact that it happens across Europe don't get us anywhere.
There is no way 1 person could competently look after 10 one year olds you don’t need an EU report to know that.
Why are you insisting on using 10? Why are you not talking about the more common numbers?
Most of Europe allows higher ratios than the UK. Do you have a single reason to believe the UK has chanced upon the best possible number and everyone else is wrong?
Last edited:
Probably not 1 y/o's (as the ratios being bandied around don't specify the age group) as they can't look after themselves but for 2 y/o's
Seems its not uncommon.
I know you don't like facts and prefer to work off feels, but the people who do look into these things found (in Sweden)
The only specific example provided so far was for France - 8 to 10 under 2’s per carer.
Presumably other countries with better ratios are more expensive.
If you think 8-10 is acceptable then I’d suggest you haven’t got a clue about kids but if you want to try and change the goal posts to find the optimum number of kids per carer per hourly rate I’d suggest starting another thread because that’s OT lol..
Yes, all French people know nothing about kids
The point is that the UK could easily lower the cost of childcare by increasing the child:staff ratio allowed in childcare. Even a modest change such as increasing the allowed ratio by one would surely have significant benefits and it is surely easy enough to determine that this can be safely since many similar countries are already doing it.
Yes, all French people know nothing about kids
The point is that the UK could easily lower the cost of childcare by increasing the child:staff ratio allowed in childcare. Even a modest change such as increasing the allowed ratio by one would surely have significant benefits and it is surely easy enough to determine that this can be safely since many similar countries are already doing it.
Which is exactly what they've just done.
He's got that wrong. It's 1:5 for under 2 and 1:8 for 2-3
Truss was looking to increase ours from 1:3 to 1:4 for under 2's
Oh and the French have a reputation for very good childcare btw.
Last edited:
Good. Somehow I'd missed that.
Regulation has done nothing but drive up cost`s in the UK. The building trade is a prime example of this, and i am not talking building standards as such but everyone needs X ticket to work on building site or perform work etc etc.
Take scaffolding its not rocket science to bolt up a platform yet you need XYZ to use spanner and they charge a arm and leg for it.
Regulation in this country is a joke and just toothless yet takes more money than it makes.
Take scaffolding its not rocket science to bolt up a platform yet you need XYZ to use spanner and they charge a arm and leg for it.
Regulation in this country is a joke and just toothless yet takes more money than it makes.
Soldato
- Joined
- 14 Jul 2005
- Posts
- 9,107
- Location
- Birmingham
Sure but you'd do the job for more money, assuming that you're 'relatively' on more money, i.e all the other jobs didn't pay the same or more.
I only used the engineering example because it's one of a number of middle earning jobs. Accountants, pharmacy, plus many other middle income jobs could be used as the example. They all require qualifications which are at a higher academic level than many service jobs require including train drivers.
I don't like using the term low skilled because I know that isn't correct, but I don't know what other term is the correct one to use to describe those kinds of jobs. Maybe vocational?
To answer your question I have a degree in mechanical engineering, started working initially in m&e project management and m&e design then moved into asset management then into regulatory economics. So I'm not really an engineer any more and instead I write technical regulatory documents for my company (water sector). I never got chartered because it added nothing at the company I worked for and they didn't cover the costs or the additional masters degree I would have needed. If I could switch jobs right now and be a train driver I would, but I can't because I would need to cover my salary to retrain which I can't do.
To clarify when i used the term couldn't (i wasn't even aware i used it) i didn't mean to imply that i physically couldn't or couldn't even do it for a while. It's that i know eventually the thought of knowing that one mistake, one off moment, or one choice i did or didn't make could result in other people losing their lives or becoming permanently injured along with the potential financial cost would take a mental toll.
But then i tend to be a little flower who constantly thinks about what may happen and catastrophize things far to much.
I think that you'd just get used to it. More likely to think about that in the early days maybe then it becomes second nature. I don't think pilots or train drivers continually think about their cargo as such, they just run the procedures as they are trained to.
So I was right - 1:10 would be absolutely ridiculous although acceptable to some on here it would seem lol.. Lucky they dont have kids..
Last edited:
Still fixating on 1:10 even though most countries do not allow ratios that high... Why is that?
Could it be so you can publicly "Pat yourself on the back" for being "right" about something nobody ever argued was wrong?
Also as evidenced by the exact post you quoted, none of those quote a 1:10 ratio.
Did you just deliberately setup a strawman argument so you could then appear to "defeat" it and think you look clever in the thread?
You're more transparent than air.