Parents pay 6,000 a year for a nursery place in the capital
Catherine Gaunt
Monday, July 2, 2012
Parents in London pay more for childcare and are less able to rely on the support of grandparents than families in other parts of the country, according to research by the Daycare Trust.
The 2012 London childcare report reveals the particular difficulties that parents in London face and makes recommendations to central and local Government and the Mayor of London, about how to tackle the issue.
The report is being launched at the start of the childcare charity's National Childcare Week, now in its 15th year.
Childcare in London is 20 per cent more expensive than elsewhere, with parents paying on average £6,000 a year for a part-time nursery place.
Added to the high cost of childcare, there is also the problem of finding available childcare when parents need it.
The transport, communications, retail, hotel and catering, and health and social care industries all employ large numbers of Londoners working outside office hours. There were an estimated 1,349,200 jobs in these sectors in 2009.
The report points out that there is very little childcare available for jobs that involve weekend or evening work.
Despite women in London being the best qualified in the UK, the percentage of woman working is the lowest at 60.5 per cent.
This could also be in part because as well as barriers to formal childcare, just 18 per cent of London parents are able to rely on grandparents for help with childcare, compared with 32 per cent of families across the rest of Britain.
It also warns that the expansion of 15 hours to 40 per cent of disadvantaged two-year-olds by 2014 could lead to shortages in some areas of London where up to 70 per cent of children could be eligible.
From 2013 some 28,800 extra nursery places for two-year-olds will need to be found.
While the report says that some of the larger nursery chains will be able to access capital to expand their provision, the Trust is calling for capital investment from central Government so that children’s centres, smaller private providers and not-for-profit early years providers can expand in some parts of London.
The report also points out that take-up of the 15 hour entitlement is much lower in London than the average across the country, which is 96 per cent of all three-and four-year-olds.
In inner London 87 per cent of eligible children access their free entitlement, and the figure falls to 80 per cent in two London boroughs.
The Daycare Trust wants the Mayor to publicise the free childcare support there is available and work with employers to make London more family-friendly.
Anand Shukla, chief executive of Daycare Trust said, ‘For the first time, the 2012 London childcare report highlights the childcare crisis facing London families. ‘Families are being faced with a combination of trends from high childcare prices to a lack of family support, which conspire to prevent London families from accessing the childcare that they need to balance their work and family commitments. This report underlines the urgent need for the Mayor and London councils to make childcare a priority and tackle this growing crisis.’
He added, ‘Local authorities must fulfil their legal requirement to ensure sufficient childcare is available when families need it, including outside typical office hours – a duty which most fail to provide.’
