Melted Parents submitted a proposal for spending the £25million on the 7th May to the Education Minister. Today, we were invited by Gavin Robinson MP to meet with him and Claire Hanna MP (who have been working together to push the treasury in Westminster on enhancing TFC) to discuss our proposal with the Education Minister, Paul Givan.
While there’s been a ministerial ask for a long time for uplifting Tax-Free Childcare from 20% to 30% it has been a blank ‘no’ from Westminster. We understand that the policy landscape is complex so we put our heads together and rewrote the question:
‘What can the NI Executive do to solve this problem?’
and with that in mind we wrote a paper with costed options on how, with limited budget - AKA the £25million - they could maximise the return of money to parents pockets in the short term - because parents don’t have time to wait.
We are happy to share that the Minister accepted some of our recommendations, and our understanding is that today they approved a 15% uncapped subsidy that will be added on top of the Tax-Free Childcare savings for children under primary school age. This top up will be covered by the NI Executive - this means that, for example, the average bill for a child under primary school age in full time childcare that use Tax-Free Childcare will see an average decrease of £2163 /year or £180 /month - these changes are supposed to come into place by September.
We are celebrating this big win, but we also understand that this won’t solve everyone’s problems and is limited to those in the Tax-Free Childcare system. This is an interim measure and most importantly: a start after a lot of talk that shows that we are moving forward towards solving the childcare crisis in Northern Ireland, and Melted Parents won’t stop until every family in NI has the support they need and deserve.
Above anything, it shows the #PowerOfParents and that our voices are being heard and we are seeing progress. We want to work hard to represent your voice in making longer term change - this is just the start.
