A new report calls for the UK’s ‘broken childcare’ system to be fixed, providing recommendations to tackle its ‘complexity, inflexibility’ and the ‘dysfunctional provider market’.
Published by independent, not-for-profit think tank Onward, the report, ‘First Steps: Fixing Childcare’, acknowledges that providers are ‘struggling to stay open, staff turnover is high and childminder numbers have plummeted.’
It suggests a number of provider-side reforms such as giving childminder agencies cash incentives and reforming business rates.
The think tank lists other problems with the childcare system, including the complexity and costly use of at least eight schemes across different Government departments to subsidise childcare costs, and how parents have little choice about when and how their children are looked after.
