A mile separates Lullabys and Little Ann day nurseries in South Norwood – yet one charges nearly £300 more than the other to look after a child.Well, that’s London for you. Hugely expensive places sitting cheek-by-jowl with the most rundown slums. These sort of price differentials are, therefore, hardly surprising…
Pockets of South Norwood are in the ten per cent most deprived areas in the country. According to official statistics, one in three children in the ward live in poverty and more than 700 people are out of work.
Against this backdrop, Lullabys, in Ross Road, charges parents £875 a month for full-time childcare for a two-year-old. This does not include a £25 registration fee for, effectively, filling in a few forms.Complaining about the registration fee seems pointless – many service organisations charge such a fee.
And if ‘a few forms’ need to be filled in, it’s no surprise, given the plethora of council and central government regulations and registration bodies these services now need to comply with, mostly driven (of course!) by media campaigns, where they are not directed by the EU.
Operations manager Theresa Staunton believes comparing prices is unfair. She said: "Before parents decide where their child should go, they should visit nurseries and see what they are getting for their money.
"Most of the nurseries that charge less aren't as good. Given the amount they are charging, they couldn't be.
"We provide high end, high quality childcare, and there are huge costs associated with that. "Because people are willing to pay them. So, why is this a problem?
Our sample also shows that high prices are not confined to the affluent areas of the borough, with nurseries in Thornton Heath, Selhurst and South Norwood asking for more than £850 per month.Ah. Once again, it’s that ‘inequality’ business, I suppose?
Seriously, of all the things for a Croydon local newspaper to run a campaign about, this is the best they could find?
Of the 30 nurseries surveyed by the Advertiser, the cheapest was Little Ann, based in St Albans Church Hall in Whitehorse Lane. Little Ann charges parents £600 a month, at least £200 cheaper than three other nurseries in the area.
Manager Malarrosa Murugaiah recently dropped her fees by £50 after several parents could not afford to pay their monthly bill. Unlike some of her rivals, she doesn't believe that price dictates quality.Well, she wouldn’t, would she?
"Yes we're a business but we must also consider what is best for the parents," said Mrs Murugaiah.
"People who live here have very little money. I know there are nurseries which ask for £800 or even £900 a month, but if I charged that much, we wouldn't have any children."And yet, others do, and seem to be well-subscribed. Strange, that…
Some of the most affordable childcare can be found in New Addington, yet it is still out of the price range of parents like Lisa Booth.
"I have looked at childcare but as a low income family we can't afford it, even with government help," she said.
"My son starts school this month, and I will use that time to find work, but I don't know what I will do in the holidays, as I feel like I can't leave a child with friends or family because they aren't registered minders."The Statist brainwashing is working, then? I mean, twenty years ago no-one would have thought twice about leaving their child with relatives or non-working friends – I myself was looked after by my grandmother while my mother went to work, and it was so unremarkable an arrangement that most of my classmates were in a similar position.
But now, it’s regarded as odd, strange, something to be remarked on and considered an inferior arrangement to paying over huge sums of money to a total stranger with a fancy logo and a paper certificate!
But Mrs Myatt fears she will have to raise charges when work place pension reform is introduced next month.
She said: "If you think that wages are at least 50 per cent of our outgoings and now we have to find an extra five per cent, that's a significant sum of money."So…how will Mrs Murugaiah cope? I wonder…
"I feel like I can't leave a child with friends or family because they aren't registered minders."
ReplyDeleteActually you can leave your child with anyone you want to while you work.
What you cannot do is claim extra income from The State in the form of the Childcare Element of Tax Credits unless that person is a Registered Childminder subject to tax.
I suspect that's the real dilemma here but this is what happens when you demand that The State doth provide. There's always a catch.
I like the idea that people 'live in poverty' is that by the United Nations standard or by some dreamed up UK standard? If these people didn't have shelter, food or basic education then they live in poverty. If they don't have a percentage of an income but, have shelter, food and basic education then they are a little hard up compared to the rest of us, but have a lifestyle millions if not nearly billions on the planet would envy.
ReplyDeleteBunny
I gather Harrodsburg Food Hall charge more than Morrisons for Parma ham, too.
ReplyDeleteThat's 'Harrods' obviously
ReplyDeleteDon't see how anyone lives in London.
ReplyDeleteProbably going to get myself into trubble here, but here goes ... in a previous incarnation one of my joyous responsibilities was "helping" in as much as I was able "people to adopt 'family friendly working'". What this usually amounted to was sitting next to "a parent" bewailing the fact that the people they were leaving their children with 'to be cared for' whilst they came to work wanted so much dosh given to them for the privilege of looking after these much loved future stars of business and commerce. You wouldn't believe how angry some of them got about it, the very idea that the people who 'just looked after their children' {so they could go to work and realise their potential and have a nice lifestyle, pay the mortgage on their very nice house etc. a decision they had taken}' should feel and think themselves entitled to receive a decent wage for doing so ... it was outrageous !
ReplyDeleteWhy haven children if you need to pay a stranger to raise them?
ReplyDeleteTwenty-five or thirty years ago, South Norwood was a nice little lower middle class neighbourhood. Not as nice as Thornton Heath or Penge, nicer than Mitcham. What happened (as if I didn't know)?
ReplyDeleteNoggin the Nog at 14:58
ReplyDelete"why have children if you need to pay a stranger to raise them"
A question that might usefully be directed at the showers in power, recent past and present, who have gone out of their way to persuade women in particular that by staying at home and looking after their children (something which men can do too, of course) they are somehow "letting the side down" and that they should be out there "doing their bit" - as a glance at some of the changes being introduced under current welfare reforms would show.
"You want to stay at home at look after your own children ! Shame on you ! You are denying someone a job by doing that, and of course with someone else looking after your children you can go and get a job yourself, which might even leave you with some money left over after you've paid your taxes and then paid for the childcare ..."
All of which proves that very often it is counterproductive for both parents to go out to work
ReplyDelete"I suspect that's the real dilemma here..."
ReplyDeleteYou may indeed have hit the nail on the head...
"That's 'Harrods' obviously"
Autocorrect..? ;)
"Don't see how anyone lives in London."
Croydon probably doesn't feel much like London these days...
"You wouldn't believe how angry some of them got about it..."
Oh, I would, believe me, I would! And like Noggin, I wonder just why these people have children...
"Twenty-five or thirty years ago, South Norwood was a nice little lower middle class neighbourhood."
ReplyDeleteIt's not the only one like that. Far, far from it.
"All of which proves that very often it is counterproductive for both parents to go out to work"
As anon at 16.22 pointed out, it's been yet another government policy that's led us to ruin.
It's really true and great fact now a days..Child care cost a lot. It is now of much difficulty for the parents who work for part time and whose jobs are not secured. There is less cost in the government nursing but there a great waiting is needed to be get treated.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't buy a nursing course from a spammer who can't write English.
ReplyDelete