It stated that single and low-income parents are the ones most likely to need such childcare due to the requirements of their jobs. This is a very sad situation; it must bad enough having to work unsocial hours without the added stress of struggling to find suitable childcare. It could result in their children having little consistency - they could be in a daycare setting during the day but looked after by someone else in the evening.
As the owner of a day nursery, I know it is extremely difficult to find qualified, experienced staff to cover anything other than 9am to 3pm, never mind evenings and weekends. Ours is traditionally a low-paid sector, predominantly staffed by women, many of whom have childcare responsibilities themselves. If people have to pay for their own childcare while they work, it is not often worth their while. Trying to provide a meaningful key person system, with staff present for the duration of the child's day, so that they can welcome the child in the morning and feedback when they go home, would be more problematic with longer opening hours or different staff at evenings and weekends.
Childminding settings are perhaps better placed to offer the flexibility required by shift workers. If you work from your own home, then it may not be so inconvenient to offer unsocial and long hours. Also, childminders can operate on their own, whereas nurseries are required to have a minimum of two members of staff, even if there is only one child present. Even for childminders, though, looking after other people's children will impact on their own family time, and I wonder if many are prepared to do this. And if there is only one child whose parents require unsociable hours, this would not provide much of an income for the childminder for those hours.
The right for parents to request flexible working needs to be maintained so that where possible, parents can juggle the needs of their families with the needs of their employer.