Work-life balance scrutinised

The former health secretary said he would like to see the Government produce a cross-departmental White Paper that outlined its work-life balance strategy for the next ten to 15 years.

In a speech in London last week at a seminar held by the independent think-tank Demos, Mr Milburn - who quit his Cabinet job last year to spend more time with his family - said such a White Paper 'should outline a 15-year strategy for expanding childcare so Britain can match the levels of provision available in the Scandinavian countries'.

This would, he said, enable state, private and voluntary childcare providers to plan better for expansion, and for recruiting and training staff. Mr Milburn said his White Paper would propose free childcare places for families on low incomes and a sliding scale of charges for better-off parents over the current two-and-a-half hours of free care for three- and four-year-olds.

He also called for a widening of care providers and insisted that 'more childcare centres, Sure Start projects and out-of-school activities are part of the answer, but cannot be the sole solution'.

Mr Milburn added, 'State support must not be limited to institutionally-based childcare. It needs to be extended to home-based childcare, as I believe the Government now recognises. Carers, nannies, childminders, sitting services - just as much as school nurseries and Sure Start centres - are part of a modern childcare infrastructure.'

He said that 'provided the childcare service parents choose is registered as being safe, they should qualify for state help according to their levels of income'.

But Nancy Platts, head of policy and campaigns at the Daycare Trust, said that while she welcomed Mr Milburn's call for a White Paper, it would 'have to really make changes in the next ten to 15 years and not just tinker around the edges'. She added, 'What he's saying is very much in keeping with other things the Government has been saying, but there needs to be the political will to put money behind these initiatives.'

She said the Government had to do some 'serious rethinking' about the childcare workforce so that they were 'valued properly in the local community'.

Statistics published last week by the Department for Trade and Industry showed that almost a million parents of young children - one in four - had asked for a change in their working hours.

Meanwhile, a three-year charter initiative to persuade companies to allow fathers more opportunities to work flexibly was unveiled at a conference, 'Working with Fathers', in London last week. Fathers Direct director Duncan Fisher said it promised 'to have a major impact on children's welfare' and that the charter would 'be good for families, for the economy, for business and will help create a fairer society for men and women, sharing work and childcare'.

* See 'Dads wanted', p26