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Choice for parents: the best start for children – A response from One Parent Families
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Archive - April 2005 One Parent Families is happy to have this opportunity to comment on the Government’s ten-year strategy for childcare, and to welcome it. The Strategy sets out a bold and ambitious vision for the next ten years, which will be of real benefit for lone parents and their children. Good quality, affordable childcare coupled with generous parental leave provisions are essential elements in the Government’s strategy to lift all children out of poverty, and to enable all parents to successfully balance work and family life.
We are delighted that the strategy sets out a ten-year commitment with milestones along the way. We also welcome the recognition that childcare and family leave policies fulfil a number of different important roles; most importantly in securing the best outcomes for children, but also in terms of maternal employment and ending child poverty.
We are particularly pleased to see the following features included in the strategy: - The goal for 12 months paid maternity leave.
- Consultation on the right to extend flexible working to parents of older children.
- The expansion of children’s centres to cover every community.
- A high quality affordable childcare place for all children aged 3 to 14.
- Increasing the affordability of childcare in the childcare element of the Working Tax Credit.
Our response to the consultation comments on those areas which will be of most benefit to lone parents and their children, and points to those in which we believe the government could go still further.
Choice and flexibility
Plans to extend paid maternity leave to 12 months are extremely welcome and will be of real benefits to lone parents working in low paid jobs who feel they have no choice but to return to work after 6 months leave. We also think that allowing mothers to transfer some of this leave to fathers at their own discretion is the right approach. There is a danger that if a period of time that could only be taken by fathers were introduced, lone parents would lose out.
We also welcome the intention to increase the rate of Statutory Maternity, Paternity and Adoption pay, and of Maternity Allowance. It will be important that the disregard in tax credits for these benefits is increased in line with these rises, in order for parents on lower incomes to receive the full benefit of this change.
We also believe there is a case for further supporting expectant mothers by introducing a pregnancy premium into tax credits, or alternatively earlier entitlement to Child Tax Credit. At present, efforts to help mothers on low income with the cost of a new child begin too late to make a real difference to the health of newborn babies, and the social class gap in low birth weight widened across the country between 1997 and 2001. [1]
We also welcome the commitment to consult on extending the right to request flexible working to parents of older children. The extension of this right would be of real benefit to lone parents, many of whom may experience family breakdown while their child is older than six. Research undertaken for One Parent Families by MORI found that 31% of lone parents had to stop work at the point of becoming a lone parent, while 25% of them would have liked to change their hours at this time.[2] Allowing parents of older children to request flexible working would help more lone parents to successfully combine work and family life. The Government has also expressed its desire to support children during transitions, for example between primary and secondary school.[3] Many lone parents may want to work flexibly during this period in order to offer additional support to their children, and extending the right to request would help them in this aim.
Some parents may also need one off flexibility, rather than adopting a regular pattern of flexible work. They may need to attend key school events, or for example to work with the school to resolve a child’s difficult behaviour. The right for parents to request such intermittent flexibility is also essential therefore.
We also believe there is still one missing part of the jigsaw in promoting work life balance, that is the provision of paid parental leave. Many lone parents surviving on one, often low, income, find that at present they cannot afford to take up the current entitlement to 13 weeks unpaid parental leave.
Ensuring that the 13 weeks leave currently available were paid, preferably at 90% of earnings, would ensure that parents felt able to take time off to care for their children; time during which they would not have to use formal childcare. Employers should be amenable to this idea as from their perspective the total amount of leave available would remain the same. This leave should, as for example in Sweden, be available to be taken flexibly – in more than one block and part time if necessary. This would allow either or both parents to return to work part time for 6 months following a period of maternity leave. Ideally the period of paid parental leave should be extended to 26 weeks.
Availability
The plans for a significant extension in the availability of affordable flexible childcare are extremely welcome. The guarantee of high quality childcare from 8am to 6pm for children aged between three and fourteen will make an enormous difference to lone parents, many of whom at present struggle to find childcare, particularly for older children.
We also look forward to the development of the new children’s centres, and believe that these will provide a valuable resource for their community. It will be important that they can offer a full range of advice services, including advice on training, employment and debt. Our recent research into the experiences of lone parents accessing training in East London[4] found that parents lacked a single point of information from which to access advice about training and education options. And our report into the advice needs of lone parents[5] found there was a significant gap in the provision of debt advice. Children’s centres should be able to provide advice, or at least signposting in both these areas. Accessing advice on employment will also be increasingly important as more lone parents lose contact with Jobcentre Plus as they are floated off Income Support via tax credits. At present, employment focussed interventions such as Work Focussed Interviews are directed towards those receiving Income Support. With the transfer of the child elements of this benefit to tax credits, a substantial number of lone parents will no longer receive this benefit, and thus no longer be targeted by or eligible for these interventions. Other means of them accessing employment focussed advice will therefore be essential.
Children’s Centres must also meet the needs of young parents. The Sure Start Plus pilots have shown the benefits of support for young parents from a specialist personal adviser,[6] and this model should be incorporated into the new Children’s Centres.
We think that an important element of the childcare strategy should include the development of ‘sitter services’ to provide out of hours or emergency childcare. Evidence from Scotland has demonstrated both the need for and the success of such services. We know that 42% of working lone parents use informal sources of childcare[7] and in developing the Sitter Services in Scotland, One Parent Families Scotland conducted a survey of out-of-hours working among lone parents and discovered that 20% worked shifts; 29% worked evenings; 30% worked on Saturdays and 17% on Sundays. These figures demonstrate clearly the need for flexible ‘wrap-around’ childcare services, such as the Sitter Services model. Further evidence of pent-up demand is demonstrated by the fact that Sitter Services in Scotland have waiting lists representing 30%-90% of current caseload.[8]
Benefits of a sitter service are considerable and include, for example, meeting the needs of families with children of different ages who would not be able to use the wrap around childcare at schools; allowing a parent to meet a specific need – e.g. attending a support group; and as part of a package to support relatives to foster a child where the mother or father can no longer care for them. We believe that more exploratory work is needed to develop the sitter services model in England, and the potential of the new Children’s Centres to support this.
The availability of childcare for lone parents however is crucially determined by its affordability. We discuss the issue of affordability below.
Quality
Quality childcare is essential in child development as the strategy sets out, and we welcome measures to increase this. A step change in the quality of provision will also reassure lone parents about using childcare, many of whom worry about the type of care their children will receive in formal provision. We look forward to the further development of these proposals.
Affordability
Affordable childcare is necessary not only to enable lone parents to work, but to ensure that working pays. Research for One Parent Families found that the average gain to work for a lone parent working sixteen hours at the National Minimum Wage was only around £34 before the costs of childcare had been taken into account, and childcare costs can therefore be critical in determining whether a lone parent will be better off in work. The increases in the level of the Childcare element of the Working Tax Credit, and the proportion of costs that it will meet, are therefore extremely welcome and will make a real difference to working lone parents.
We would strongly support proposals to extend the childcare element of the Working Tax Credit to those working less than 16 hours a week. Research has shown that working in ‘part time jobs’ of less than 16 hours can be influential in helping lone parents move into ‘full time’ work, but that lone mothers working such hours often experienced high levels of hardship.[9] Additional help with childcare costs would both help to alleviate such hardship and allow lone parents to access stable childcare arrangements which might help them move into longer hours work.
Stability of employment would also be promoted by introducing a ‘child care run on’ for those leaving employment and wishing to move swiftly into another job. Lone parents moving into work from the New Deal for Lone Parents do not always enter immediately into stable, long term employment – 29% return to Income Support within a year.[10] Ensuring that those whose first job does not work out can maintain stable childcare arrangements would enable them to look for, and move quickly back into work. We therefore recommend that the childcare element of working tax credit be continued for a period of two months after the end of employment.
While such extensions would be extremely welcome, we believe that in the long term, help with childcare costs should not necessarily be linked to being in employment. The extension in the amount of free provision for three and four year olds will help more children to access the benefits of childcare as demonstrated by the EPPE study. However we believe that a further extension of free provision would enable more lone parents to participate in education and training, to prepare for employment, and to successfully combine work and care.
Whether help with childcare costs remains linked to employment or not, we believe that at present the balance of funding is still tipped too far to the demand side as opposed to supply side subsidies. We see a number of problems with the current payment of childcare costs through the Working Tax Credit. Firstly, there is no guarantee that encouraging parental choice will push up the quality of childcare to the levels essential for child development. Quality childcare is not easily identifiable by parents, and the EPPE study found that price was not a reliable indicator of quality. More supply side subsidies would give Government a valuable lever over the quality of childcare they fund.
Secondly, demand side funding has thus far failed to create the kind of sustainability in the childcare market that will be necessary if quality is to be embedded. A high turnover of childcare places is a well-known feature of the UK childcare market, and was highlighted in the National Audit Office’s report on the Early Years.[11] Supply side funding would encourage greater sustainability as well as greater quality.
Thirdly, the operation of the childcare element of the Working Tax Credit is incredibly complex, and is poorly understood by many parents. Recent research for One Parent Families found that just over a quarter of those in the sample required to calculate their childcare costs struggled with this, with lone parents reporting problems recalling how much was paid, understanding the instructions provided by the Inland Revenue and actually performing the calculation. Recent discussions with the Inland Revenue on how to simplify the operation of the childcare element of tax credits reached an impasse when it was realised that no one solution would both suit all family types and be able to be dealt with by the Inland Revenue’s own systems. A switch to supply side funding would make the operation of the system considerably less burdensome for parents. We look forward to the results of piloting a greater use of subsidies in London, and hope that these can be swiftly built upon in other areas of the country.
In summary therefore we warmly welcome the strategy and recommend: - That the right to request flexible working is extended to parents of older children;
- That pay is introduced for the current thirteen weeks of parental leave;
- That Children’s Centres incorporate employment and training advice into their services;
- That the feasibility of developing a ‘sitter service’ model of emergency childcare in England and Wales is investigated;
- That the childcare element of Working Tax Credit is extended to those working less than 16 hours a week;
- That the childcare element of Working Tax Credit is extended for a period of two months after employment ceases; but
- That in the long term the balance of funding for childcare is rebalanced away from tax credits towards supply side subsidies.
[1] Palmer, Guy, Jenny North, Jane Carr and Peter Kenway (2003) Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion 2003. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. [2] MORI (2004) Single Parents and Employment – Research study conducted for One Parent Families MORI. [3] HMT (2004) Child Poverty Review HMT. [4] Haux T and Kimina M (2004) Accessing training in East London: The Case of Lone Parents NCOPF. [5] Moorhead R, Sefton M and Douglas G (2004) The Advice Needs of Lone Parents NCOPF. [6] Rosato M et al (2004) Sure Start Plus National Evaluation: Summary of Interim Findings Social Science Research Unit. [7] McKay 2002 ‘Low/Moderate Income Families in Britain, Working Families Tax Credit and Childcare in 2000’ in DWP Research Report no. 161, Leeds:CDS. [8] Insight 9: ‘The Sitter Service in Scotland: A Study of the Costs and Benefits’ , Scottish Executive Education Dept.:RECS, October 2003, page 6. [9] Rafferty A (2003) Lone and coupled mothers working less than sixteen hours a week DWP. [10] Evans M et al (2003) New Deal for Lone Parents: Second synthesis report of the national evaluation DWP. [11] National Audit Office (2004) Early Years – Progress in delivering high quality childcare and early education accessible to all TSO.
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