Childcare problems to leave families with disabled children worse off, charities warn

Research by Mencap, Contact a Family, the Family and Childcare Trust and the Council for Disabled Children, found disabled children are 10-times less likely to access 15 hours a week of free childcare than their non-disabled peers.

The survey of parents found a quarter access none of the entitlement, while a further 40 per cent with disabled children aged three and four don’t claim all the free hours they are entitled to.

The charities warn this will mean that many parents with disabled children will struggle to find extra work to offset the loss in benefits as a result of changes to the tax credit system the government wants to intrdouce over the next two years.

Amanda Batten, chief executive of Contact a Family, said: “When tax credits are introduced we are worried that many families with disabled children will not be able to take up their free childcare entitlement and increase their hours of work.  

“The government has repeatedly suggested that free early years’ childcare is designed to partly offset tax credits cuts so they must make good on this promise for young disabled children.

“High quality, flexible childcare helps children’s educational and social development and enables parents to maintain paid employment. But this remains a pipe dream for many families with disabled children.”

The report says parents of disabled children struggle to access childcare because of the cost and availability of care, and settings refusing placements.

Difficulty accessing top-up funding from local authorities is also a problem, while around a third of parents surveyed said they didn’t think childcare providers could safely care for their child or had adequately trained staff.

A quarter of families said a setting refused their child a place because of their disability or special educational needs (SEN).

The group's report, which examined changes in childcare policy since the inquiry into childcare for disabled children last year, calls on the government to consider the extra costs involved for providing childcare for disabled children when deciding on a fair rate for the free childcare expansion to 30 hours per week.

It says additional funding should be provided to local authorities to fund early years provision for disabled children, and to pilot flexible childcare provision for disabled children when the expanded entitlement is introduced in 2017.

It recommends that the Early Years Single Funding Formula provided to early years settings should include a mandatory supplement, like schools’ SEN budget, to provide extra funding to help them to provide support for disabled children.

Batten adds that the second reading of the Childcare Bill this Friday in the House of Commons provides “a golden opportunity for government to improve the bill so that childcare no longer remains an insurmountable struggle for families with disabled children”.

A Department for Education spokesman said: “We are committed to making sure all families have the same access to high-quality, flexible and affordable childcare, and have introduced the biggest reforms to the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) system in a generation, focusing support on individual needs and aspirations.

“Local authorities can already dedicate funding from their high needs budget to early years services, and are already required to publish ‘local offers’, highlighting to parents and carers all of the available SEND support in their area, including childcare.

"Our early implementers programme for the 30 hours free childcare, starting in September 2016, will help make sure that the necessary support is available for children with SEND.”