Paymaster General Dawn Primarolo MP, addressing the Trust's annual conference in London, said it was important to devise a more transparent system where all families were included. She said the new integrated child credit will be available to all families with children, subject to their income. There will be no work requirements, enabling parents such as student nurses who were previously excluded, to claim. The new credit will also be aimed at supporting people as they move into work.
Ms Primarolo said, 'A key objective is to respond to a family's changing circumstances. The WFTC is not flexible and is fixed for six months. With the new system we need to have security with flexibility and we are attempting to find the right balance. In seeking that balance we have been grateful to the Daycare Trust and other organisations who have responded to our consultation.'
Earlier this year the Inland Revenue invited childcare providers and organisations to suggest ways to improve the childcare tax credit element of its new employment tax credit, which will replace the WFTC across the UK in 2003.
Ms Primarolo added that tax credits are only part of the answer to enabling parents to access childcare, and that along with giving parents the ability to claim financial support they also need to receive a childcare service that is targeted to their individual needs.
She said, 'A challenge for childcare over the next ten years is for all of us to develop childcare around the needs of parents and children and make sure that it is what they want and need.'