Childcare provision for disabled children branded inadequate

The Childcare and Early Years Survey of Parents 2009, funded by the Department for Education, found that although children with an illness or disability which affected their daily lives were as likely as other children to use childcare, it "masked the fact that substantial proportions of parents with disabled children feel that local childcare provision does not adequately cater to their particular needs – those specific to their child’s illness/disability, at the hours they required or at a distance that it was suitable to travel".

It added: "Moreover, where parents were using formal childcare for their disabled child, one-third thought that the staff were not properly trained to deal with the child’s condition. This suggests that, currently, when parents do find provision it does not always meet their needs.

"The survey also pointed to the need for better information for parents with disabled children, as substantial proportions of parents were not able to give an answer (or answered neither agree nor disagree) to questions about the availability or suitability of local provision for their child, although this includes parents who were not using formal childcare, some of whom may not have had reason to seek or absorb information that was available."

The report describes what childcare is used by different types of families, changes in take-up over the years, parents’ reasons for using or not using childcare and for choosing particular providers, and parents’ views on the providers they used and on childcare provision in their local area in general.

It found there has been substantial growth in the use of formal childcare over the past decade and in particular between 1999 and 2004, stating: "This can largely be attributed to an increase in the take-up of early years education with the entitlement to free early years provision being rolled out to three-year-olds during this period."

The survey also looked at mothers, childcare and work and found that since the survey series began 10 years ago, there has been an increase in maternal employment which "is likely to have been influenced by the range of childcare and family-work reconciliation policies that have been introduced during this decade".

But it added: "The analysis of mothers who were not in employment shows that a substantial proportion reported childcare as a barrier to work. However, examining past data, we can see a decline throughout the past decade in the proportion of mothers saying that they could not go to work due to difficulties in accessing suitable childcare. Financial considerations influenced the decisions of a substantial minority of mothers to remain out of work, though mothers in couple families were more likely to report that there was no financial need for them to work, they had enough money, whereas lone mothers were more likely to claim that they could not afford to work, that is they would not earn enough money to make working worthwhile."