The Need for a Scottish Childcare Strategy
1.1. This Government is committed to supporting families and children. We have already demonstrated that support - raising school standards, increasing child benefit, helping parents back to work through the New Deal, the biggest ever welfare to work investment. The Scottish Childcare Strategy is another essential component of our support for families and children.
Supporting parents and children
1.2. Children are cared for in many ways and almost all children receive a mix of informal care from parents and relatives in the home and more formal care in other settings. Good parenting is the key to ensuring that children grow up happy and well-prepared for adult life. Parents are the first and often the greatest influence on their children’s development and education. This is true whether they look after their children full-time or combine parenting and paid work.
1.3. Parental care is complimented by a range of other services. Some, such as parent and toddler groups, family centres, one o’clock clubs and toy libraries focus on meeting the needs of children with their carers. They provide valuable developmental opportunities for children as well as the chance for parents to share experiences and resources.
1.4. Good parenting is the key to ensuring that children grow up happy and well-prepared for adult life. Parents are the first and often the greatest influence on their children’s development and education. This is true whether they look after their children full-time or mix parenting with paid work.
1.5. Childminders, nurseries and out of school clubs focus on meeting the needs of children while their parents are at work. Playgroups and study support arrangements provide developmental opportunities for all children, and may at the same time help parents in work with childcare needs.
1.6. Parents who choose to work or train want to be assured that their children’s needs will still be met when they are left in the care of others. Evidence shows that good quality childcare provides long-term benefits for the development of all children, of whatever background. Day care and early education are interdependent and closely interlinked. Good quality day care can contribute to young children’s social development. Through early education, learning opportunities are planned and integrated, paying attention to the child’s emotional, personal, physical and intellectual development. Children need to be happy and emotionally secure, and to have ample opportunity for constructive play. Older children also need care when their parents are absent, whether in school premises or elsewhere. There is much to be gained from breaking down the traditional institutional divide between education and childcare, and developing seamless provision. Good childcare enhances educational achievement and personal development, for example by offering suitable opportunities to do homework or to enjoy out of school learning activities. It also offers a range of appropriate and stimulating activities for children including creative activities, sport and other developmental, enjoyable play.
1.7. Children’s needs are therefore at the heart of our Strategy, but if the Strategy is to meet the needs of families, it must also take account of wider changes in work and society.
Changing patterns of work
1.8. In the United Kingdom the proportion of mothers in paid employment outside the home has grown, from 52 per cent to 62 per cent in ten years. The change is even more noticeable for mothers of young children. In the last decade the proportion of mothers with children under five who work outside the home has increased from 32 per cent to 51 per cent. This has been matched by other changes: an expansion in the number of women achieving educational qualifications and a slow but clear convergence of pay levels for women and men in full-time work. The number of women of working age in the workforce in Scotland is projected to rise by 27,000 (against a projected overall decrease in the total workforce of 21,000) by 2006. We welcome women’s greater involvement and equality in the workplace and want to ensure that all those women who wish to can take up these new opportunities.
1.9. But we also want to ensure that parents - both mothers and fathers - can achieve a good balance between working and family life. British fathers work longer hours than in most other European countries, which limits the time they can spend with their children. Employed fathers with a child under 10 work an average of 47 hours a week in the United Kingdom compared with 41 in the Netherlands. A lot of parents - especially mothers - prefer to work part-time while their children are young.
1.10. We have made a good start in helping working parents to spend more time with their children. The European Parental Leave Directive will give parents the right to three months unpaid leave after the birth or adoption of a child and to take time off for urgent family reasons. The Working Time Directive will limit working hours for many people to 48 hours a week. By ensuring equal treatment for part-time workers, the Part-time Work Directive will allow those who wish to reduce their working hours to do so without loss of employment rights.
Changing family patterns
1.11. Many parents prefer their partner, a grandparent or another relative to look after their children. Only a third of mothers with children under the age of five use professional or registered childcare now, and over half of all working mothers rely on informal care, usually from their partner, for at least some part of their working day.
1.12. But not all parents can rely on such informal sources of care. Relatives may live a long way away or be in paid employment themselves. In most lone parent families, domestic and childcare responsibilities are carried largely by mothers alone. Without formal childcare, such parents find it hard to enter the labour market or to train to improve their chances of finding work. In Italy, France and Sweden around 70 per cent of lone mothers are in employment, nearly double the level in Scotland.
The failings of past approaches to childcare
1.13. The approach taken by previous Governments to the formal childcare sector has been to leave it almost exclusively to the market. But this has failed to meet the needs of vast numbers of children and parents as society has changed. The voluntary sector has been left to fill gaps in support for parents caring for their own children and informal carers. As a result we are all losing out - children, parents, employers and society as a whole. Childcare in Scotland today has three key problems:
- quality is variable;
- the cost is high and out of the reach of many parents; and
- childcare is not readily accessible in many communities.
Quality is variable
1.14. Quality assurance of formal childcare is at present focused on regulation under the Children Act 1989 of childcare places for children under the age of eight. This assures minimum standards in terms of fitness of carers, their qualifications, adult:child ratios and the physical environment. Guidance describes the quality of experience which children should experience in registered childcare, but how this is applied depends on local interpretation. Excellent quality assurance and enhancement programmes have been designed by voluntary bodies, and individual local authorities and others but they are not available to or used by all childcare providers.
1.15. There are also anomalies in the current regulation arrangements. The nature of the inspection and regulation regime varies according to the nature of the provider rather than the needs of children. For example, minimum staffing ratios are enforced for playgroups, childminders and nurseries but not for pre-school education classes in schools catering for children of the same age. Some providers are subject to more than one form of regulation. Children Act standards have not always been applied consistently.
1.16. Many older children are indirectly protected by the Children Act requirements because they use childcare which is registered and inspected for younger children. Nonetheless, at present anyone can offer to look after children of eight and over. Parents understand that informal arrangements, for example with babysitters, are not regulated and make their judgements about care for their children in this light. They may not appreciate, however, that group care for older children can be totally unregulated and may not therefore always make appropriate enquiries before choosing this provision for their children.
1.17. As childcare provision has grown in recent years, not all local authorities have increased their registration activities in line with this growth, resulting in long delays in registering new childcare providers in some areas. The introduction of our childcare strategy will lead to a large increase in the number of childcare places and it is imperative that in this process the safety of children is assured.
1.18. One of the most important ways in which we can ensure quality in childcare is through the expertise, skills and qualifications of those who work in the childcare and playwork sector. Many existing childcare staff and playworkers are unqualified. As childcare grows an enormous increase in the supply of competent individuals will be needed. Working with children of all ages can be a challenging and satisfying job, requiring a wide range of skills. However, in the eyes of many, this sector still has the image of a low status, low pay occupation which anyone can do. These perceptions can make it difficult to recruit people of the right calibre to the profession and to retain them.
1.19. It can be hard for workers in the sector to add to their skills, progress in their careers, work with children of different ages or move freely from one employer to another. There are a large number of disparate qualifications which do not relate clearly to each other. Qualifications demanded by one employer may not be recognised by another. It can be hard for volunteers or the self-employed to find the time for training or to meet its cost. Those working on their own (e.g., childminders, nannies) may need support and encouragement in working towards a qualification.
The cost of care is high
1.20. Good quality childcare does not come cheap. The Daycare Trust estimates that the typical weekly cost of a full-time childminding place for a child under five years old varies from £50 to £120 and that the cost of a full-time place at a private day nursery for the same child ranges from £70 to £180. Even when a child starts school and no longer needs full-time childcare, parents are faced with typical costs of £15 to £30 a week for an after school club and £50 to £80 a week for a holiday playscheme. This means that a family on average income with two children could pay out as much as one third on childcare.
1.21. For families on low or moderate incomes, especially lone parent families dependent on one income, the cost of childcare can be so high that they cannot afford to work. Others have to use a substantial proportion of their disposable family income on childcare.
1.22. The previous Government attempted to make childcare more affordable for low income working families by introducing a childcare disregard in family credit and other benefits. There are flaws in the disregard, which severely restricts its scope and its effectiveness as a means of providing childcare support. Not only is it complex to understand and to administer, but help to poor families is limited. As a result, only 32,000 families in the United Kingdom receive extra benefit through the disregard, around a fifth of the original intention.
1.23. Many parents, especially lone parents who on average have low levels of qualifications, need training or education to improve their employability. Lack of affordable childcare can be a barrier for them too.
Childcare is not readily accessible
1.24. There is a shortage of childcare places in Scotland and parents’ access to those places can be hampered by poor information about what is available. Overall there are just over one million children aged under sixteen in Scotland, of whom just over 300,000 are under five. There is currently (provisional November 1996 statistics) estimated to be around 300 formal childcare places for every 1,000 children under five in Scotland (not all of which will be full-time). Data for children of school age are more patchy but in general there is less childcare provision. For example, it is estimated that only one in forty primary school children have access to out of school clubs. We also know that there is a wide variation in the local availability of provision.
1.25. There is clear evidence of unmet demand for childcare. Four out of five non-working mothers say they would work if they had the childcare of their choice and one in seven mothers who do not have a job but want one see childcare as a barrier in finding work.
1.26. Not only is there an overall shortage of places, but children’s and families’ particular needs may not be met. Parents of children with special educational needs or disabilities have difficulty finding appropriate care and so do parents with unusual working hours.
1.27. Childcare is of no use to parents unless they know it is there and they have the knowledge and information to make the right choice for their children. At present a range of voluntary sector and other organisations provide information about their own areas of interest and expertise. Parents may have to go to a range of sources to collect all the information they need. Local authorities have a legal duty to provide information on childcare but the scope of the requirement is not specified in detail. As a result the extent and quality of local information varies widely. Information often takes the form of paper records which rapidly become out of date. While some authorities offer excellent services others fall well short of what will be needed under the Scottish Childcare Strategy.
A new approach to childcare
1.28. It is up to parents to decide what sort of childcare they want for their children. This is not a matter for the Government. But it is the Government’s responsibility to ensure that parents have access to services to enable them to make genuine choices. The Scottish Childcare Strategy will deliver this by dealing with the problems we have identified. Our aim is to ensure quality affordable childcare for children aged 0 to 14 in every neighbourhood, including both formal childcare and support for informal arrangements.
1.29. The Strategy will be founded on the five principles of quality; affordability; diversity; accessibility; and partnership.
1.30. We depend on the expertise and knowledge of local authorities, childcare providers, parents, local enterprise companies and employers to deliver the strategy. We will set up new ‘childcare’ partnerships based on existing ‘Early Years Forums’. Their remit will be expanded to cover childcare for 0 to 14 year olds.
1.31. The following chapters set out our three steps to a Scottish Childcare Strategy and how they will be delivered. Chapter Two sets out our plans to raise quality. Chapter Three explains how we will make childcare more affordable. Our plans for making childcare more accessible are given in Chapter Four, and Chapter Five explains our approach to working in partnership. The timetable for action after the Green Paper is given in Chapter Six.
1.32. The two tests of success of our approach will be:
- better outcomes for children, including readiness to learn by the time they reach school and enjoyable, developmental activities out of school hours;
- more parents with the chance to take up work, education or training.
1.33. Above all, we want to engage all those concerned with childcare - childcare providers, local authorities, Local Enterprise Companies, employers, voluntary bodies as well as parents themselves in shaping and delivering the Strategy. We want your views on the detail of the proposals set out in the succeeding chapters. Together, we can deliver the childcare that we need and which our children deserve.
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