The call for evidence runs until the end of August and the commission will report in the autumn.
David Cameron said, ‘I urge the everyday experts – the parents, childminders and nursery owners – to get in touch with ideas for how we can make the system better and more affordable.’
Children’s minister Sarah Teather and Maria Miller from the Department for Work and Pensions, are leading the commission.
The consultation focuses on three main themes:
- Ways to encourage provision of wraparound and holiday childcare
- Identifying any regulation that burdens childcare providers unnecessarily
- How childcare supports parents to move into jobs and out of poverty
Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, said that ‘removing regulation won’t do anything about reducing the cost of childcare'.
‘Nothing should jeopardise quality and quality is improving. We need to look at everything in totality. The Government haven’t responded to the Nutbrown review yet and that will have cost implications.’
She also said that it was an opportunity for the Government to go further than these three themes and look at how childcare is funded.
‘When David Cameron launched the childcare commission he acknowledged the fact that the funding is very complex.
‘The complicated nature of funding needs to be part of that, simplifying the funding for parents.’
She said that with childcare vouchers, tax credits, the nursery education funding, and the Universal Credit coming in, the Government should look at rationalising funding.
Last week, Labour’s shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg was in Swindon for the party’s first ‘listening event’ by the Labour party’s childcare commission.
Mr Twigg said, ‘Ed Miliband has identified childcare as a key priority for Labour’s policy review. Since 2010 over 30,000 women have chosen not to seek employment because of the costs associated with working, including childcare. We are here to launch our conversation with the public on how to create a system that makes work pay, centres childcare around the educational needs of our children and contributes to rebuilding a rebalanced economy that works for working people.’
- Respond online to the coalition Government’s Childcare Commission consultation by 31 August.
Labour’s commission has three key questions for parents. To fill in their survey visit http://www.labour.org.uk/childcarecommission