Nurseries and children’s centres should be able to take on ‘academy status’ and be freed from local authority control, according to a Conservative MP.
Elizabeth Truss’s report on childcare, published today by the CentreForum think-tank, calls for radical simplification of the funding systems and removal of some red tape from childcare workers.
Truss says the government spends around £7bn a year on pre-school support for families, proportionally more than the governments of France, Germany and the Netherlands. Yet childcare costs for British families are among the highest in Europe, she says. A two-earner UK family on average wages will spend 27% of its net income on childcare.
Regulation of childcare providers is also excessive, Truss says, particularly the set ratio of children to adult carers. In Britain, a childminder may not care for more than three children under the age of five at any one time. In the Netherlands and Germany, for example, the ratio is 5:1 and Truss wants the UK ratio to be raised to the same level.
The South West Norfolk MP’s report, Affordable quality: new approaches to childcare, calls for an academy-style system for children’s centres, with money currently controlled by local authorities passed on to the front line. She also proposes a network of agencies which childminders could register with, as happens in the Netherlands.
Truss’s proposed structure, based on academies and agencies and regulated by Ofsted, would be backed with a single funding system, replacing the current Child Tax Credits, nursery vouchers and employer vouchers.
Truss said: ‘The coalition government has a great opportunity to simplify the provision of childcare and get better value for money for parents. Reform could lead to an increase in availability of flexible childcare and an end to spiralling costs.’
