A government evaluation of the London-based Childcare Affordability Programme (CAP) pilot said it was impossible to conclude how the programme impacted on parents, due to a lack of engagement with those who took part.
"Parents were not asked to provide contact details for possible subsequent follow up," said the report. "Central monitoring information is unable to identify, at a programme level, the total number of parents benefiting from the support, the period of time they have engaged with the pilot and the amount of provision used by individual parents."
The report said it was also impossible to tell how many parents had been helped in returning to or retaining work as a result of the pilot. The evaluation team, SQW Consulting and Brunel University, were appointed a year in to the pilot which ran from November 2005 until March 2009; the team recommended that any future initiatives should have an evaluation team appointed at the very start to assess exactly what information is required.
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