No less than 96 per cent of parents who had used a childminder during the past week rated them as very good, while 88 per cent of parents using nursery classes and 70 per cent of those using private day nurseries rated those forms of care as very good.
Sample size made the results for local authority nursery centres and playgroups statistically unreliable, but the former were rated very good by about 90 per cent of parents and the latter by about 70 per cent.
Generally, the findings of the survey, Parents' Demand for Childcare in Scotland, carried out by the National Centre for Social Research, send out a reassuring message to childcarers across the board, with 84 per cent of those who used formal providers rating them as very good.
Good quality staff or a good quality carer emerged as the key reason why parents considered a provider good or very good. Childminders were more likely to be highly trusted and parents chose them because they thought they would show the child affection, while the most important factors cited for choosing a nursery or playgroup were its reputation and parents' desire for their child to mix with other children.
Nurseries, including both private and local authority settings, emerged as most parents' preferred option when asked to name the ideal type of formal childcare for pre-school children, named by about four in ten. Nannies were marginally preferred over childminders, by 18 per cent over 17 per cent of parents, for this age group.
Playgroups, however, fared less well. Local authority and private playgroups were each named as the provider of choice by four per cent of parents of nought to two-year-olds, with demand tailing off in the three to four age group. Out-of-school clubs were the favoured option for children of school age.
The most common reason parents gave for not using their ideal form of provision was cost or lack of availability. Three-and four-year-olds were most likely to be cared for by the provider their parents considered ideal.
Just over half the sample thought there was too little information available on childcare provision in their local area. Childcare information services have some way to go if they are to tackle this, as less than three per cent of parents had made use of them. The survey showed that parents were much more likely to find out about childcare through word of mouth.
Maggie Simpson, national development officer at the Scottish Childminding Association, said that the SCMA was encouraged by the very high levels of satisfaction expressed by parents in relation to childminders. She said she was not surprised that trustworthiness and reliability were given as important reasons for choosing them.
Similar research carried out in England and Wales, published last year by the National Centre for Social Research, also found high levels of satisfaction with formal childcare, although patterns of use varied. Childminders, nannies and playgroups were all more commonly used for three- and four-year-olds in England and Wales than in Scotland, while Scottish three-and four-year-olds were slightly more likely to have attended some form of nursery provision.
However, given the choice, the majority of parents in Scotland would opt for informal care within the family. Twenty-four per cent said they would prefer their child to be cared for by their partners, while 20 per cent preferred one of their child's grandparents. In practice, grand-parents were the most commonly used providers of care for children of all ages.
The report can be found in full and as a summary on the Scottish Executive website, www.scotland.gov.uk.Hard copies of the full report will also shortly be available from the National Centre for Social Research in London, for no more than 20, by contacting Sue Johnson on 020 7549 8520.
