In My View - We need the returnees

Since the previous government raised the percentage of childcare costs met through the tax credit system to 80 per cent, I have witnessed the numbers of single parents using my nurseries rise considerably. Many more young women are now able to return to work and become the 'useful' members of society we encourage them to be. These women are both those in the general workforce and those that work in the nursery.

Traditionally the young women who worked for me left when they had their first child, and few could afford to return to work. Now these young women are returning and it is undoubtedly the increased support for nursery fees that is the impetus. I need these women to return, as I have invested heavily in their training. But with recent announcements about the cuts to the percentage of fees they can claim through tax credits, I am faced with the possibility that they will choose to stay at home. The only way I might persuade them to return is by supporting them with the cost of childcare myself - but in a business that has a workforce full of women of childbearing age, this could be a lot of money. This comes at a time when we are forced to freeze nursery fees in order to support the parents through this difficult economic period, schools are still busy hoovering up four-year-olds and the single funding formula is more of a threat than a promise.