How to fix our broken childcare system: as well as more cash, local councils are key
Research shows fixing our broken childcare system requires a stronger role for local authorities, say Ivana La Valle and Eva Lloyd, University of East London
The Covid-19 pandemic was clearly a catastrophe for most of the world, but it provided a rare ‘natural experiment’ conclusively showing the impact of withdrawing education services to children. In 2020-21, with funding from the Nuffield Foundation, we carried out extensive research with parents of 0-4-year-olds, early years settings, local authorities and other stakeholders in England to explore what happened when early education and childcare services were severely disrupted by the pandemic.
Our research shows that the effects on children and their families were widespread and profound, leading to a shift in parental attitudes. We found a growing consensus among parents that children should have a right to early education and childcare and increasing frustration that the current system does not guarantee that right. Consultations with stakeholders on the implications of our research found a widespread belief that that the current early education and childcare system is not working. In order to fix it, as well as an investment targeted at supporting sufficiency, equity of access and the quality of provision, we also need a stronger role for local authorities.
Setting closure = parental headache
During the first 18 months of the pandemic parents became acutely aware that even if they had the time and resources to support their children’s learning at home, and not all parents did, they could not replace the learning and development opportunities that an early years setting can provide. Parents had serious concerns about children not hitting key developmental milestones because their formal learning was so disrupted.
The closure of settings and the continuing disruption of services once they re-opened also had a profound impact on parents, particularly mothers who did the lion’s share of the childcare, with a deterioration in their mental health. In addition, some had to reduce their working hours or give up work, with others reporting that their performance was adversely affected as they worked at home while also looking after the children. Some parents were considerably more affected than others by the disruption in services: those who were parenting alone; families with children with additional needs; families living in overcrowded conditions or who lacked access to outside space.
Not valued
While the pandemic brought home to parents that early education and childcare is essential for families with young children, it also highlighted that it is not as valued and supported as education for older children. Parents thought it was unfair that it was down to individual providers to decide if their child could access the setting, while older children’s access to education was regulated nationally. Similarly, unlike schools, support with home-learning depended very much on the decision of individual providers, even though settings continued to receive public funding. Some parents were disappointed that, when restrictions were eased, children in early years settings were not given the opportunity to catch up on the funded hours they had missed, while additional tutoring was provided in schools. Finally, the pandemic highlighted once again that unregulated childcare fees mean that families can be at the mercy of providers: some settings continued to charge parents full fees while their child was legally prevented from using the service.
Post-pandemic the early education and childcare system continues to be under strain with more families struggling to access services as childcare fees have increased above inflation. The quality of provision is likely to deteriorate as staff are leaving in droves and cannot be replaced.
Solutions
Two clear messages emerged from our consultations with organisations representing families, providers, local and national policy makers on how to fix a system that is clearly not working:
- More investment in early education and childcare, with new funding targeted at supporting the three pillars of sufficiency, equity of access and the quality of provision.
- New local authority statutory responsibilities with a named early years lead in all authorities to ensure that strategically and operationally accessible and high quality early education and childcare is a key component of the local offer to families with young children.
New local authority role
Currently, local authorities are meant to intervene if unmet needs, sufficiency or access problems are identified in their local services, in reality, they have limited powers to deal with these issues. Furthermore, our study found that the extent and effectiveness of local authorities’ intervention varied widely.
We identified five areas where local authorities’ ability and capacity to intervene to support participation in early education and childcare must be strengthened and become more consistent across the country.
- To support more equitable access, local authorities need more powers to ensure that the early education entitlements are genuinely free -currently many parents pay to access these entitlements- and to intervene if children are excluded from settings because they are ‘too expensive’ - children with complex needs can struggle to find a place because they require additional support. Local authorities should also support families to apply for childcare subsidies, rather than just provide information, as these are complex to navigate and therefore underutilised.
- More good quality school-based provision should be provided, particularly in areas where there is little or none, as nursery classes and nursery schools provide high-quality provision and better access for disadvantaged children than other provider types. A recent childcare report by the Children’s Commissioner for England has also called for schools’ greater involvement in delivering early education and childcare. An expanded role should include providing a service to meet the needs of working families, as currently many school-based services don’t cover the working day or school holidays.
- The participation of disadvantaged children should be supported by evaluating current schemes that aim to increase take-up of the early education entitlements, extending those that are effective and testing new approaches, including multi-agency working. Furthermore, our research shows that local authorities provided effective brokering to families in the early days of the pandemic, suggesting that they are well placed to find places for families who face barriers to access to early education and childcare.
- As they did during the pandemic, local authorities should support partnerships with parents by encouraging providers to build on their increased capacity and experience to support home-learning, as envisaged by the Early Years Foundation Stage.
- The expanded safeguarding role for early years settings took on during the pandemic should be consolidated as their knowledge of and trusted relationships with families can help to identify those who needed support and ensure vulnerable children do not go ‘off the radar’.
As local authority support for providers has been declining considerably in the past decade, fixing the early education and childcare system will also require a stronger local offer to settings in three key areas.
- The severe workforce challenges the sector is facing require immediate and decisive action. Local authorities are well placed to ensure that the early years workforce is included in Local Skills Improvement Plans and that local providers are involved in the development and implementation of local early years workforce strategies. Local authorities should also support settings with staff recruitment and retention.
- Quality improvement should be supported through more affordable early years training for local settings; more tailored one-to-one quality improvement advice and support; and, implementation of effective evidence informed approaches within settings.
- Local authorities should offer settings (more) business advice, support and funding that helps them to balance the books while ensuring that their service meets the needs of local families, including children with complex needs and families who cannot top up the early education entitlement.
Targeted investment and a reversal of the drive towards centralisation to give local government a greater role in managing and supporting local early education and childcare systems are needed to ensure that all children can benefit from positive early education experiences and that lack of childcare is not a barrier to work for mothers, particularly those on low incomes.
The ‘Implications of COVID for Early Childhood Education and Care in England’ study was funded by the Nuffield Foundation and the research was undertaken by a team from the Centre for Evidence and Implementation, the University of East London, Frontier Economics, Coram Family and Childcare and the Institute for Fiscal Studies.