At £7.20 an hour (for over 25s), the Government’s National Living Wage is currently £1.05 lower than the level recommended by the Living Wage Foundation.
The idea of expanding the free entitlement is welcomed as one way of tackling rising childcare costs, but the report questions how far that will go to help families.
According to the ‘Cost of a Child in 2016’, published by Child Poverty Action Group today (Thursday), it is feared that some providers may not be able to afford to offer the extra hours due to insufficient government funding.
The DfE is currently consulting on the Early Years National Funding Formula, which is designed to make the free entitlement funding fairer across settings, while investing an extra £300m into the expansion.
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