The Care of Young Children
‘Where next for childcare? Learning from the 2004 childcare strategy and ten years of policy’. The Family and Childcare Trust’s review of 10 years of childcare policy in the UK which examines policy in the last ten years focusing on childcare accessibility, affordability and quality. Read the summary
No More Baby Steps Report:
This report, by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), sets out plans for how the UK can move towards a universal, high-quality and affordable system of childcare and early-years provision, complemented by reforms to parental leave and rights to flexible employment. It shows that the benefits of high-quality early-years provision promote greater equality in early childhood development, and better social and educational outcomes later in childhood. Affordable childcare also helps to reduce gender inequalities, and by promoting dual earner households, it helps to reduce child poverty. The authors set out detailed costed plans for the expansion of early years provision with the following core components:
• an extension of universal early-years provision – providing a universal entitlement of 15 hours a week of early learning, 48 weeks per year, for all children under the age of two until they enter school;
• a new framework of affordable childcare for working families;
• improvements to the quality of childcare and early-learning to support children’s development, including building a highly qualified early years profession, whose members hold teaching and early years-related qualifications;
• reforms to parental leave entitlements.
