
Through its proposed tougher regulatory framework the charity wants to see better standards of care for staff and children as well as a requirement of receiving public funding.
Its report warns that private providers who dominate the early years market are currently overseen by “lax financial regulation” and the sector is blighted by “well-documented issues like variable quality and poor worker pay and conditions”.
This situation will continue unless “robust and ambitious standards, controls and sufficient funding” is in place to ensure quality early years is being delivered by privately run settings.
“This means taking seriously the fact that childcare is a market and regulating it like one, in the interest of parents, children and workers, and creating a new framework of obligations and incentives for private providers to be real partners in delivering a crucial public good,” said the charity.
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