Private and voluntary sector nurseries alone will not be able to provide sufficient places for disadvantaged two-year-olds, the research concluded.
The report by NatCen Social Research, 'Childcare Sufficiency and Sustainability in Disadvantaged Areas', looked at ten different local authorities and carried out case studies with a small number of group settings and childminders in each area.
It said that, 'Sustainable childcare provision in disadvantaged areas needs to be publicly funded in one form or another. In those areas in the research where a free market model of childcare operated, there were enough childcare places to meet parental demand, but these places were threatened by the financially difficult situations many of the providers felt they were in.'
Available vacancies would not meet the numbers needed for roll-out to 20 per cent of two-year-olds from September 2013.