on work and poverty is still the only option for many women. Will the government make good on its new childcare strategy - and can the plan make a real difference? JANE KELLY reports. The Ten Year Childcare Strategy announced by the government in December 2004 aims follow the National Childcare Strategy 1998 which tried to increase the number of affordable, good quality childcare places in England.
Changes in the system are desperately needed, for the statistics on Britain's children are a disgrace, lagging far behind most other European countries. At present there is one childcare place for every seven children under the age of eight. 4.3 million children in Britain live in poverty, 600,000 of them under three, yet there is only one subsidised childcare place for every 14 of these disadvantaged under three-year-olds.
The low priority given to childcare, much of it privately and expensively provided, is revealed by the wages paid to to £13,000 for a qualified worker in an educational or social services setting.
At the same time women, including mothers of prechildren, are increasingly large sector of the workforce. Over the last five years or so a significantly higher number of mothers have been returning to work straight after maternity leave, though often they have gone into part time employment.
In 2003, of women who were married or co-habiting and with a child under five, 19% were working full time but 39% were working part time. For single mothers these figures were 10% and 23%.
These figures rise as the child goes into full time education. However it is still the case that women rather than men take a break for childrearing - euphemistically called a career break - which also interrupts work patterns, affecting work and career prospects.
More are now working for a great part of their lives than ever before, The typical cost for full-time childcare for an under two-year-old is £134 a week, rising to £168 a week in London and the South East. So the government's increase in spending has been inadequate making up half the workforce in Britain. Despite the Equal Pay Act of 1973 women in full time employment still only earn 82% of the male wage, while those working part-time earn more like 78%.
Even though nearly 40% of employees have dependent children and over half of women with children under five are at work, the high cost of nursery provision means
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The government promised a nursery place for every three and four year-old by 2004 and there was a threefold increase in spending from £66 million in 2001 to £200 million in 2003-4, creating one million new childcare places.
The problem is, large numbers of mothers are returning to work soon after the birth of their children and the cost of childcare for the under threes remains very high with only 5% of employers contributing to child care costs, and another 5% offering nursery places.
The typical cost for fulltime childcare for an under two-year-old is £134 a week rising to £168 a week in London and the South East. So the government's increase in spending on childcare has scarcely been an adequate response to the needs of mothers for pre-school child care, whether they are raising children on their own or not.
Early this year, Ed Balls, former chief economic adviser to the Treasury, recognised the failure of the free market system in pre-school childcare:
"... as the Government's agreed 10 year strategy sets out clearly, there are real constraints on the ability of market mechanisms alone to deliver for parents the kind of reliable and quality care, at affordable prices, that we need
".. These market failures mean that it is only through government intervention to regulate, subsidise and sometimes provide childcare that many parents are enabled to make real choices about childcare."
Ed Balls claims that the commitments in the Ten Year Childcare Strategy are fully financed. Others are not to be completed by 2010 and who knows what will have happened by then? One thing is for sure; we have a long way to catch up. What are we promised? The government's Ten Year Childcare Strategy sets the following targets: • April 2005: increase of childcare element of working tax credit from 2135 to £175 for family with one child; and from £200 to £300 for larger families • April 2006: percentage of costs covered will increase from 70% to 80% But parents who are separated and share childcare can only claim in one household • April 2007: increase in paid maternity leave from 6 to 9 months as a first step to extending it to 12 months' and with ambition to increase the flat rate' The Daycare Trust campaigns for this rate to be at least equal to the national minimum wage
By end of next Parliament: mothers can transfer some of this entitlement to fathers • 2006: extension of free part-time early education for 3 and 4 year olds to 12.5 hours a day for 38 weeks a year. This to be increased to 15 hours a week by 2010. But what about 1 and 2 year olds for whom the cost is very high? • 2006: promises to provide an extra 250,000 new childcare places in Childcare Centres 'or elsewhere' • 2010: commitment to provide 3,500 children's centres and 'wraparound" childcare for 5 to 11 year olds from 8.0am to 5.0pm But these centres are focussed on 'disadvantaged' areas while nearly half of poor children do not live in these
In addition there are long term goals' to ensure degree qualified staff lead all full time day care provision and more training for both home-based and group childcare.
The so-called Transformation Fund will support investment by local authorities in 'high quality, affordable, flexible and sustainable childcare provision'.