How much of a difference will the new childcare provision for two-year-olds make?

Good morning. If you want to make a toddler’s parents furious – and they’re always on a pretty short fuse, let’s be honest – ask them how much of their salary they’re spending on childcare. The cost and quality of provision is one of the most persistent questions of our time: it matters for working parents trying to make ends meet, but it is also important for society generally because a child’s early years have an impact on them for the rest of their lives.

While the government has recently increased the provision of free hours for working parents, there are huge concerns that, because those places are not fully funded, the move could result in a shortage of places and a spike in fees for the hours people have to pay for themselves.

But that is not all there is to the childcare debate – and a new report from the Fawcett Society aims to take a much wider look at what a good system would look like, by drawing on the evidence of a group of other countries that recently underwent major reform.

Today’s newsletter, with Alesha De-Freitas, head of policy at the Fawcett Society and one of the report’s authors, is about what it would take to make childcare affordable – but also to make it better. That’s right after the headlines.

Five big stories

In depth: ‘You need to say to people that the system will be there for you long-term’

From this month, working parents of two-year-olds in England are entitled to 15 hours of government-funded childcare each week in term time. That will be extended to working parents of all children older than nine months in September. A year after that, the entitlement for those families will increase to 30 hours a week. The government estimates that these plans will mean a doubling in childcare spending over the next few years, from £4bn to £8bn a year.

“That would definitely be a positive thing if the sector was in a position to deliver it,” Alesha De-Freitas said. Instead, the picture is “patchy, chaotic, and unpredictable”. The problem is that expanding free hours has not been matched by a commitment to funding them in full, De-Freitas said. “And outside of the free hours, the cost of childcare is likely to go up to help pay for it.”

As things stand today, in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development index of 38 countries, the UK has the highest cost of childcare for parents as a proportion of women’s median full-time earnings – a key reason for the persistence of the gender pay gap.

That is one reason the Fawcett Society looked closely at Australia, Estonia, France, Ireland and Canada – all countries that have recently transformed their systems. “There’s never going to be a place that is a perfect match that you can just copy,” De-Freitas said. “But we wanted to see what we could use to get from where we are to a better system.”

Here’s some of what they learned.

Make a long-term plan

Instead of the incremental changes that are typical of the development of childcare in England, the most successful systems consult lots of experts, set out a clear long-term plan, and commit to implementing it. “You have to have transparency,” De-Freitas said. “You need to say clearly to people, if you decide to have kids the system will be there for you in a long-term way.”

In Ireland, an independent expert body was assembled with the resources to commission research. And because the government had already committed the money, they knew they were likely to be taken seriously. There and in Australia, draft findings were published along the way. “That is not what the UK is doing,” De-Freitas said.

In Estonia, all children between 18 months and seven years old are entitled to childcare. Because of this, De-Freitas said, “You hear people talk about things like the difficulty of getting speech and language experts into nurseries. We never talk about things like that, and it’s not because we need them less – it’s always just about, what is childcare for, and what does it cost?”

End ‘activity tests’ to reach the worst off

The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates the poorest third of families will see almost no benefit from the government’s plan to expand childcare, because the offer is contingent on being in paid work.

In Australia, these “activity tests” were not found to have increased women’s workforce participation – while two-thirds of poorer families were being charged for some childcare. An expert commission has now recommended they be dropped. Canada is planning to offer $10 (£5.80) a day childcare by 2026. In Quebec, where a similar policy has been in place since 1997, women’s employment rose from 63% to 75% in 15 years.

There are also significant disadvantages for children from minority groups, who are much less likely to take up free entitlements than their white peers. “That is about making sure that childcare is culturally inclusive and welcoming – there is a wealth of evidence, for instance from how New Zealand focused on integrating Māori children, of how powerful that can be.”

Meanwhile, in the UK a 2005 study found that just 16% of mothers with disabled children worked, compared with 61% of all mothers. At the moment, many children with disabilities and special educational needs are being turned away because nurseries don’t have the expertise or capacity to care for them.

Fund nurseries instead of children

Childcare is funded in two ways: on the supply side, through funds directly to institutions; and on the demand side, through direct subsidies to parents or money to institutions linked to a particular child. “Internationally, there is a huge move towards the supply side,” De-Freitas said. “That’s because if it’s the child who attracts the funding, you’re always going to be targeting parents who can pay already or get free hours.”

Estonia, Ireland and Australia all use supply side funding as a way to achieve policy goals. But in the UK, only maintained nursery schools – 21% of the total – get supply side funding. That has led to a classic market failure of “childcare deserts”, with 44% of children in areas where there are more than three children per place – usually the most deprived communities. Why open a nursery in a poor neighbourhood if parents are less likely to have the money for childcare and are less likely to qualify for the new provision for working parents?

“There needs to be more money direct to nurseries,” said De-Freitas. “But it needs to be conditional, based on making sure the quality of provision is high, and that some of it goes through to workers.”

Value childcare workers more highly

The central problem with the government’s new approach is that it appears to have ignored the fact that the people looking after the children need to be paid. “It’s women who do that work, and historically it’s assumed to be low-skilled,” De-Freitas said. “Childcare is essentially viewed as babysitting.” See the debate in recent years about staff ratios for evidence of this.

In fact, the international evidence consistently shows that a highly qualified workforce with a meaningful career ladder produces the best outcomes for children and makes it easier to retain workers. “Parents know that having staff who know their children is one of the most important things,” De-Freitas said. “But if you get a qualification, the difference in what you can earn is very small.” That’s why funding training and increasing pay are key recommendations of the report.

Think about more than affordability

“Affordability is clearly essential,” De-Freitas said. “But we’ve got stuck on it. When you look at other countries, you find a richness to the conversations about what is genuinely best for children that is so different to the UK.” The Fawcett Society report warns that “designing a system which is focused narrowly on [affordability] without strengthening and resourcing the system … may ultimately be counterproductive and unable to meet the demands it has set up”.

There is ample international evidence that higher quality childcare has huge long-term economic and social benefits. “The early years of a child’s life are so important – the evidence for that is growing all the time. It really impacts on children’s long-term outcomes and access to education,” De-Freitas said. “We should be aiming for so much better than just having somewhere for parents to park their children while they’re at work.”

What else we’ve been reading

• George Monbiot helpfully factchecks the “moo-woo” claims made in a new documentary about how livestock farming can be redeemed through soil carbon storage. Nimo

• Dahlia Scheindlin breaks down the reaction to Iran’s drone attack inside Israel, and how safe citizens really feel under Benjamin Netanyahu as “it is impossible to see how escalating forever wars on multiple fronts will diminish any threats”. Charlie Lindlar, newsletters team

• Kyle MacNeill visited the last video stores still renting films to loyal customers, years after streaming killed most profitability. “People have been waxing lyrical about saving our libraries. This right here is a veritable library,” a customer said. “It’s the last bastion of video rental.” Nimo

• For our Fashion Statement newsletter (sign up here!), Chloe Mac Donnell speaks with nine stylists, designers and campaigners about why there’s plenty of reason to feel hopeful about the future of sustainable fashion. “We’ve got a whole new generation determined to hold the industry accountable,” says one. “There’s no going back.” Charlie

• Finding how much protein you should eat can seem like a complex calculation. Amy Fleming breaks it down to make the whole thing a bit more straightforward for every age. Nimo

Sport

Football | Cole Palmer put on an unstoppable display with a perfect first-half hat-trick and a fourth in the second half as Chelsea demolished Everton 6-0 in the English Premier League.

Cricket | Derek Underwood, the most prolific spin bowler in England’s Test history, has died at the age of 78. Underwood claimed 297 wickets in 86 Test appearances with his brisk left-arm spin, as well as another 32 in ODIs.

Olympics | France has made backup plans to move the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games from the Seine if there is a serious risk of a terrorist attack, Emmanuel Macron has said.

The front pages

The Guardian this morning splashes on “Iranian attack ‘will be met with response’ says top Israeli general” while the i says “Britain and US tell Netanyahu: don’t start a world war”. Similar top line in the Financial Times: “US and Europe in frantic diplomacy to deter Israel from striking back at Iran”. “Wallace: west must stand up to Iranian bullies” – that’s the former defence secretary in the Daily Telegraph while the Daily Express asks: “Can we NOW outlaw Iran’s terror force in UK?” – the government is being called on to proscribe the Revolutionary Guard Corps. Here’s your answer in the Times: “PM rejects mounting calls to ban Iran group”. The Daily Mail and the culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, have other priorities: “Now ban trans women from female sports”. “This is an outrage!” – that’s Donald Trump in court, and not happy about it, in the Metro. “Street yobs’ victims’ ‘live in fear’” – the Daily Mirror backgrounds the victims and prisoners bill due to be debated today.

Today in Focus

Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

Ane Freed-Kernis spent much of her adult life developing her career as a social worker and raising her son in England. After her father died, though, Freed-Kernis turned her attention to stone carving, a hobby that connects her to her Danish childhood. She signed up for a week-long stone carving course and learned how to turn formless rocks into magnificent pieces of art. After her 60th birthday, Freed-Kernis knew this hobby had become an all-consuming passion that she needed to invest in. She built a workshop in her garden where she could sculpt whenever she pleased. Now, she has shown her work at an art festival and has a thriving small business with 12 to 15 commissions a year.

“As long as I can physically sculpt, I will,” she says. “Plus, it’s great if you’re in a bad mood, since nothing makes you feel better than hitting a piece of stone really hard, repeatedly – I recommend everyone try it!”

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