Parents try to solve the conundrum of affordable childcare

Those parents who do both work find that they are paying 
the highest costs in the world outside Switzerland for care whose quality is variable and not easily found in some parts of the country.

The cost of a nursery place has increased by nearly six per cent in the past year, leaving a working couple on average wages with two children facing a bill totalling more than a quarter of their net family income, according to a report released by think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). The average cost in England of 25 hours a week care for one child under two for 50 weeks of the year is £5,106.

The report calls for the Government to adopt the policy followed in Denmark, where parents are guaranteed a national entitlement to high-quality childcare, with fee reliefs for poorer families and a cap restricting the total amount any family has to pay.

The Government could fund a Danish-style system by freezing child benefit for 10 years and withdrawing winter fuel allowance and free TV licences from better-off pensioners to 
raise £4.2 billion a year, says the IPPR.

The think tank says that, before her recent appointment to the Government, childcare minister Liz Truss indicated an interest in reforms similar to those introduced in the Netherlands in 2005, although Ms Truss says it’s not feasible to try to import another country’s childcare system.

Dutch nurseries are required to have one adult childminder for every five under-fives and one childminder for every two babies aged under 12 months, compared to ratios of three to one for under-fives and one to one for babies in the UK.

The IPPR report said that the share of children under four enrolled in childcare had 
doubled in the Netherlands 
since these reforms, but said 
that many of the new places in fact involved grandparents claiming public subsi dies to 
care for their own 
grandchildren.

IPPR director Nick Pearce said: “Childcare in the UK is more expensive and of more variable quality than in many other European countries.

“Advocates for the Dutch system argue that the UK childcare system delivers poor value for money for both parents and taxpayers because funding does not follow parental demand, our child-to-adult ratios are restrictive and regulation for childminders is overly burdensome, pushing up costs.

“In reality, UK childminders can actually look after up to six children under the age of eight at one time, so long as no more than three are under the age of five and no more than one is under the age of one. The fall in childminder places over recent years has been among those catering for school-aged children, so competition from nurseries cannot be to blame.

“Rather than ‘go Dutch’, we would do better to look to Denmark, where parents 
benefit from high quality, affordable childcare but there 
is no additional cash payment akin to Child Tax Credit. 
Denmark spends only a 
slightly greater share of its national income on children and families than Britain, but it devotes a much greater proportion to parental leave and childcare.”

Kate Groucutt, of the 
Daycare Trust, welcomes the 
IPPR report and the fact that 
the problem of access to good quality, affordable childcare 
is now acknowledged by all political parties.

“Mainly we are talking about care for pre-school children, and parents who are facing rising costs despite wages that are not rising or may even have fallen. Our research has found that many families are going into debt to finance childcare, with the costs of care in some families exceeding rent or mortgage. Many women want to work, but it’s not financially viable.”

“We’d like to see a cap of 
maybe 10 per cent of income spend on childcare (similar to the French and Norwegian models), with the rest paid 
by the government. and restoration of the childcare element of tax credits to where it was before the government reduced it last year.”

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