Published: Wednesday, 20th January, 2010 4:00pm

Parents face massive rise in childcare costs

by Julie Gilbert

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WORKING parents facing massive increases in childcare costs are demanding the council re-thinks its plan.

From February 1 new charges for council-run nurseries and out-of-school care affecting hundreds of families will come into force.

Some will be facing more than 100 per cent increases.

The controversial decision was made to rush the charges through before the end of the financial year as West Dunbartonshire Council (WDC) struggles to balance its books ahead of public funding cuts.

But parents say it has left their own family budgets in tatters and some believe they will have to quit working.

Teacher Nicola Fraser, 33, from Dalmuir, sends her daughter to Garshake Nursery in Dumbarton and will be shortly giving birth to another child.

She says she has planned her family carefully so that the new baby would not be going into nursery care until her elder daughter was three and entitled to 12.5 hours of free childcare a week.

The announcement just before Christmas, that fees at the nursery would be increasing and she would no longer be entitled to a second child discount, have left her devastated.

Her bill for both children will be £572 a month instead of £311 during term time, and £767 a month instead of £460 during the school holidays.

Nicola, a teacher at Vale of Leven Academy, told the Post: "We decided to extend our family knowing that we could afford the increase in fees. These changes are going to mean huge, unfair and totally unexpected increases for hundreds of families across West Dunbartonshire."

Parents who use out-of-school care provision for older children are also to be hit.

One mum who sends her eight-year-old to Linnvale out-of-school care for two hours a day is facing a massive increase from £90 a month to £260.

May Smilie, Education convenor for WDC, said: "Childcare charges have been kept low over a number of years, benefiting working parents but within the current budgetary context, the council can no longer continue to subsidise childcare services to the current level."