Pressing pause button on 10-year strategy has damaged childcare
Denise Burke
Monday, June 9, 2014
Ten years ago, the government of the day launched a 10-year childcare strategy that set out its policy vision to improve childcare in this country. Choice for parents, the best start for children was a cross-departmental strategy. It aimed to ensure that every child gets the best start in life and to give parents more choice about how to balance work and family life.
The childcare agenda would not have moved to the mainstream at that time without ministers Margaret Hodge, Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt, the media, and organisations such as the Daycare Trust (as it was known). Then, early years and childcare professionals welcomed the strategy, which we all hoped would shape the future of childcare following the national childcare strategy that was launched in 1998.
So 10 years on, where are we now? Childcare remains one of the big domestic issues as we approach a general election next year. Everyone acknowledges that childcare is key to ending child poverty, promoting child development, improving life chances, tackling inequalities, promoting work-life balance and stimulating economic recovery. But unfortunately the 10-year strategy has failed to truly deliver.
Ultimately, childcare is still too expensive for many parents. No one has yet cracked the nut of how to make childcare more affordable, while ensuring that childcare providers remain financially sustainable and making sure the market continues to grow. There has still not been an open and honest debate about supply-side versus demand-side funding.
In 2004, the vision was for children's centres and schools to play a key role in the expansion of childcare to help local authorities manage the market effectively. The Transformation Fund of ú125m a year from 2006 supported investment by local authorities to provide high quality, flexible, affordable and sustainable childcare provision to meet local need.
Looking back, there have been missed opportunities and unwillingness from some to change. Some local authorities took on the challenge with great vigour, while others drowned in the plethora of childcare initiatives and multitude of funding streams. There was a lack of integration and joined-up thinking. So much happened in a short space of time that many couldn't keep up with the pace of change.
Right now, childcare is back up the political agenda. All the main parties have childcare on their radar and will develop their childcare manifesto policies for next year. The subject is incredibly emotive and a vote winner for many families, so all parties are on their toes wanting their ideas to be the most appealing to voters.
New ideas are not always welcomed though. The proposed change to childcare ratios caused a ruction within the coalition government last year. The Tories and the Liberal Democrats will want to differentiate themselves on childcare policy as we get closer to May 2015. Labour's pledge to increase the free entitlement for three- and four-year-olds to 25 hours a week is a step in the right direction, but isn't the silver bullet to solve the childcare crisis.
In this country, the vast majority of childcare is provided by the private sector in nurseries and by childminders. We have seen a huge increase in the number of childcare places since 1997 when there was only one registered place for every nine children under the age of eight. The number rose significantly after the launch of the 10-year strategy, but the number of places over the past two years has declined despite a soaring birth rate.
This regression in the number of places is due to several factors. Childminders have found the mountain of Ofsted paperwork too onerous and are concerned about the introduction of childminding agencies; small nurseries have closed because they were no longer financially viable; and children's centres have closed due to local authority funding cuts.
There is also a widening gap in the lack of affordable places in areas where there is greatest demand. More places are needed in disadvantaged areas to meet the demand for two-year-old places. Yet it is understandable why so few childcare providers are willing to invest in these areas. It simply isn't financially viable to provide just 15 hours of childcare. Squeezed incomes mean families need to work more hours and parents need accessible, affordable childcare close to home.
The 10-year childcare strategy in 2004 set out a series of milestones. At its bedrock was the creation of 3,500 children's centres by 2010. In fact, by 2010 some 3,600 children's centres were open. Yet now there are just over 3,000 centres and only half of these provide any on-site childcare. Many of the centres still open are nothing more than ghost ships costing more to maintain than the value of the services they provide.
Quality, affordable childcare cannot be achieved without proper long-term funding, but pressing the pause button on the 10-year childcare strategy was a damaging decision. It will take a long period of recovery to build on the achievements of the past.
Denise Burke is director of United for All Ages and www.goodcareguide.co.uk