Providing for Children Under Three in England:

1. Providing for Children Under Three in England: The Difficulties of a Targeted Approach.

2. Changes in provision for children under three in England 1996: Most children under three at home or with childminders (family daycare) 2006: Huge expansion of nursery places for children under three; most expansion in the private day nursery sector

3. Reasons for expansion of places for children under three • Provision of Childcare seen as a route for achieving Equal Opportunities for mothers at work • Childcare an aid to staff recruitment and retention in vulnerable sectors of the economy where there are skills shortages – eg health care

4. Reasons for expansion of places for children under three • Mothers, especially single mothers, receiving state benefits are a drain on the Exchequer. • If mothers can be encouraged to work instead of claiming state benefits, then they will contribute taxes rather than accepting handouts.

5. Problems with expansion • Tax thresholds and benefits not calibrated; • you pay tax before you earn enough to cover loss of benefit • unskilled women mostly early minimum wages and have to work unsocial hours in retail or catering industries • So for many women it is not worth working

6. Problems with expansion • Demand-led childcare – offering parents money to help them buy childcare assumes that places can be generated without too much difficulty in the private sector.

7. Demand led childcare • Profit a paramount consideration – 1/5th of all nurseries in the hands of five stock-market listed companies • Parents fees must cover costs – typically £150-£275 per week, highest in London • Staff costs must be kept down – minimum wage, poor conditions, young unqualified staff, and high turnover (over 33% pa)

8. Demand led childcare • Private investors unwilling to invest in poor areas- profits too low (London an exception) • So Government have launched “Children’s Centres” in poor neighbourhoods. • Local authorities provide incentives offering capital and revenue support to investors to open nurseries in poor areas

9. Sure Start • Sure Start a “flagship” programme targeted at children under three living in poverty. Its aims were: • To change the expectations, attitudes and aspirations of mothers when children are very young • To get health, social welfare and educational professions to work together to support mothers

10. Sure Start • Aims continued: • To “empower” mothers by letting them set their own agendas for each local Sure Start programme.

11. Sure Start Evaluation • Independent university based evaluation team. Their findings were: • Each project took twice as long as expected to get going – 2 or 3 years to set up a project • No change in mothers, no more mothers working • No change in children, no improved school results

12. Sure Start Evaluation • Impossible to evaluate so many different local initiatives • Debates about: • whether Sure Start was not targeted enough and didn’t reach the poorest and most vulnerable or • Whether universal services would be better than targeted services.

13. Birth to Three Matters • A strong child • A skilful communicator • A competent learner • A healthy child

14. Implementation • Difficult to implement in private sector since it assumes a higher standard of skills and resources than many nurseries possess. • Government have tried to enforce it. • All nurseries must be inspected to see if they are following the framework

15. Birth to Three Matters • Teachers and parents expressed alarm at the regulation of child development. One group called the new curriculum "absolute madness". • The National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations said: "We are in danger of taking away children's childhood when they leave the maternity ward." • Margaret Morrissey, its spokesman, said: "From the minute you are born and your parents go back to work, as the Government has encouraged them to do, you are going to be ruled by the Department for Education."