What do working parents and carers want most in the coming year? For many, the answer is affordable, appropriate and flexible childcare. For almost a quarter (23 per cent) of parents who took part in Working Families’ 2018 Modern Families Index, childcare affordability was a barrier to working. Mothers and fathers alike tell us that childcare considerations have a key bearing on their decision to take a new job.
The UK’s childcare support system is a tangled mess of schemes, each with differing objectives, and many of which have come about as the result of an arms race among political parties to have the most attractive offer for parents at General Election time. The result? Seven types of childcare support, each with different eligibility criteria and complex ways of interacting with one another.
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