25/01/2026
Dear Gareth Bacon for Orpington
I am writing as a constituent and as a Deaf and SEND-registered home-based childcare provider to explain the real financial impact of providing care for children from our own homes, following the recent discussion in the House of Commons regarding the removal of the additional 10% allowance.
I am concerned that the practical realities of working from home as a childcare provider are not fully understood, particularly for those of us who support children with additional needs.
While it is often stated that we can “claim expenses”, this does not mean those costs are returned to us. Any expenses we claim simply reduce our taxable income; they are still paid for entirely out of our wages.
For example, if I spend £1,000 on resources, repairs, utilities, or equipment, this may reduce my tax and National Insurance by around £200, but I still lose the remaining £800 from my earnings. These are not reimbursed costs — they are personal financial losses absorbed by us in order to do our jobs properly.
By contrast, many companies can reclaim expenses in full, separately from tax, meaning the employee does not personally lose that money from their income. This is not the case for home-based childcare providers.
Alongside this, many of us are also experiencing a loss in funding or funding that does not reflect the true cost of care, particularly for funded childcare hours and SEND provision. In practice, the funding rates often fall short of covering staffing time, resources, utilities, training, and compliance costs, leaving providers to make up the difference personally.
This means that even before household expenses are considered, a significant portion of our income is already reduced. When combined with unrecovered expenses, the overall effect is a substantial loss of earnings.
The additional 10% allowance helped to partially offset the unavoidable costs of running a childcare setting from our homes, including:
• Increased heating and electricity usage throughout the day
• Higher water consumption
• Additional household wear and tear caused by young children
• Repairs such as door handles, flooring, or fixtures (for example, a simple repair plus labour can easily cost £80 or more)
• Higher use of cleaning products, toiletries, and laundry
• Extra home insurance required for childcare
• Resources such as toys, books, paints, paper, pens, and replacement items
• Fees for toddler groups and enrichment activities
As a Deaf and SEND-registered childminder, these costs are often higher due to the need for specialist resources, inclusive materials, visual aids, adapted equipment, and sensory-appropriate environments. These are essential to providing safe, accessible, and high-quality care, yet none of these costs are ever fully recovered.
If I worked outside my home, my heating would not be on all day, my home would not experience accelerated wear and tear, and I would not need to purchase these additional resources at my own expense.
Limiting claims to a single working room also does not reflect reality. Children move throughout the home, bathrooms are used repeatedly, kitchens are in constant use, and heating cannot realistically be switched on and off room by room throughout the day.
The removal of the additional 10% allowance, alongside insufficient funding rates, has therefore resulted in a genuine and ongoing loss of earnings. It did not represent extra income, but rather helped bridge the gap between what we are allowed to charge and the true cost of delivering high-quality childcare.
We are told what we can charge families, yet from that income we must fund all resources, maintenance, compliance, and running costs ourselves. Even after claiming allowable expenses, we never recover the full financial loss.
I love my job and take great pride in providing children — including those with additional needs — with a safe, nurturing, and inclusive start in life. However, the current approach makes this work increasingly financially unsustainable, particularly at a time when the childcare sector is already under immense pressure.
I would urge you to raise this issue and advocate for a fairer recognition of the real costs borne by home-based childcare providers, whether through the reinstatement of the additional allowance, a review of funding rates, or an alternative mechanism that genuinely reflects our loss of earnings.
Thank you for taking the time to consider the realities of this work. I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this further if helpful.
Yours sincerely,
Natalie Bayliss
BR69SG
Deaf & SEND-Registered Childminder
