As a charity working with families trying to balance the challenges of work and family life, our experiences concur with the findings. The situation is particularly acute for families in central London. Westminster is a tale of two cities, the 'haves' and the 'have nots', with levels of deprivation that would shock many less traditionally prosperous parts of the UK.
Westminster Children's Society is the only significant provider of full nursery daycare in central London that is also a charity, and all our places are subsidised. We work predominately with families on medium to low incomes. These parents want to give their children a good start in life by combining the benefits of high-quality education and care with the opportunity to become economically self-sufficient. Indeed, this is one of the Government's aims for reducing poverty. However, what we find is that these parents cannot even afford to pay our subsidised fees.
These findings complement the recent Department of Health-funded study, carried out by the University of East Anglia, which found that it makes economic sense for the Government to fully-fund nursery places for poorer families.
Surely, what we all want and need for the good of the whole of society is to support people on medium to low incomes to become parents by offering free daycare provision?
I would love to hear what Nursery World readers think about this issue.