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Published research

Making Work Pay - The Childcare Trap

Parents in the UK face some of the highest childcare costs in the world. This affects their ability to work, train and study, as well as forcing families to make difficult financial choices.

In spring 2011 Save the Children and Daycare Trust surveyed more than 4,000 parents to explore their views on access to childcare and the impact of childcare costs on family incomes and work prospects.

Save the Children and Daycare Trust believe that affordable, accessible and high-quality childcare has a vital role to play in tackling child poverty. Together we are calling on the government to increase the amount of financial support parents can receive to help pay for childcare.

Making Work Pay - The Childcare Trap  This briefing uses findings from the survey to examine how the cost of childcare impacts on parents' employment, family budgets and in turn child poverty.

Telling their story A compilation of parents' words from the ‘What's childcare really costing you?' survey.

Informal Childcare: Choice or Chance?

Despite the greater availability and affordability of formal early childhood education and childcare, research shows that the number of parents using informal childcare - from friends and family - remains high. Although informal childcare is important to many families, little is known about this practice. To fill this knowledge gap, Daycare Trust is undertaking a two-year research project on informal childcare, supported  by the Big Lottery Fund, and running between 2010 and 2012 . 

The overall aim of the research is to map informal childcare use and achieve a greater understanding of this form of childcare and, where applicable, its interplay with formal childcare. We are interested in who uses informal childcare, to what extent and for what purpose. We also aim to profile informal carers and analyse their experiences.

The first phase of our research comprises two large-scale surveys: one of parents and the other focusing on those who provide informal childcare. We will also be interviewing a range of parents and carers throughout the project. 

We hope that our research will build a stronger body of evidence that can feed into policy recommendations to support families. The first published outputs of the project are:

Informal Childcare: Choice or Chance? This literature review provides a comprehensive background to informal childcare.

Listening to Grandparents Drawing on new Daycare Trusts research, this report highlights the importance of grandparents care to families

Further published outputs from the project planned for 2011 and 2012 will include an analysis of our survey findings, papers on specific informal childcare issues and an end-of-project book. For further information about this research please contact Jill Rutter on jrutter@daycaretrust.org.uk or on 020 7940 7526.

Open all hours? Flexible childcare in the 24/7 era

Changes in the economy have led to increasing demand for employees to work outside of the standard working hours of 8-6pm - most notably the growth of the service sector and increasing demand for people being able to access services 24 hours a day.

This is a particular issue for parents who need to access childcare at these atypical hours - a mere 17 per cent of working families with dependent children work exclusively standard hours. There is much evidence to suggest that formal childcare is rarely available to meet this ‘non-standard' demand.

The research found that demand for formal childcare at atypical times was substantial: 67% of parents working atypical hours struggled to find childcare to meet their needs. This included 66% who struggled to access childcare after 6pm, 53% before 8am, 40% at weekends, and 32% overnight. Furthermore, being able to access childcare at short notice was also a significant issue for many parents (four in ten).

The research also found numerous case studies which show how barriers to providing atypical hours childcare can be overcome, notably through childminder networks which have a range of availability which allows the childcare coordinator to find someone who is available at relatively short notice. Furthermore, the report also highlights the necessity of support at local authority level, helping providers to identify and attract demand and ensure that they are financially viable.

Download the full report 

Quality costs: Paying for high quality early childhood education and care

Daycare Trust in collaboration with the Social Market Foundation and the Institute of Fiscal Studies were commissioned by the Nuffield Foundation to explore and establish what constitutes good quality early years education for children in England and Wales, in relation to what parents can afford to pay. 

Download the Executive Summary

The full report is available to purchase. Please visit our online shop to purchase this title.

The final report suggesting alternative models for high quality universal education by 2020, and recommendations for how this can be funded, is accompanied by five working papers:

• Working Paper 1: What is high quality early childhood education and care? - Maxine Hill and Emma Knights, Daycare Trust.
• Working Paper 2: What is the cost of quality? - Sandra Gruescu, Social Market Foundation.
• Working Paper 3: What do parents pay? - Kate Goddard, Daycare Trust.
• Working Paper 4: International comparisons of high quality early childhood education and care - Sandra Gruescu, Social Market Foundation.
• Working Paper 5: Funding options for high quality early childhood education and care - Mike Brewer, Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Childcare Advance: scoping the need for help with up-front costs

For many parents, the requirement to pay up-front childcare costs including fees in advance, deposits, retainers and administration fees to secure a place with a childcare provider creates a significant barrier to starting or returning to work.

The Childcare Advance project, funded by Friends Provident Foundation, investigates the help currently available to families when faced with up-front childcare costs, the extent to which parents experience difficulty meeting these costs and models potential options for a sustainable scheme offering financial help to parents with these costs.

The research findings support the need for a national scheme offering financial help to parents with up-front childcare costs and suggest that a low cost loan delivered by not-for-profit lenders is the best way of supporting parents, both for long term sustainability of the scheme and for offering a better fit with financial help with ongoing childcare costs available to parents.

A second stage of this project is recommended during which different delivery models can be trialled and evaluated. At least one pilot should be an employer delivered loan scheme and another delivered as a partnership of a community organisation or Family Information Service and a Credit Union or Community Development Finance Initiative. Daycare Trust are currently seeking opportunities to pursue this second stage.

Download the report summary. 

ISBN: 978 1 906245 50 2

Download the full report. 

ISBN: 978 0 9558819 9 2

Childcare Nation

Childcare nation?: Progress on childcare strategy and priorities for the future

ISBN: 1 871088 96 8

This comprehensive progress report on the Government's childcare strategy has been compiled by Daycare Trust and the National Centre for Social Research. As well as charting progress to date on delivering the strategy, the report spells out what still needs to be done to ensure access to childcare for all who need it.

Childcare Nation? has been funded by the Nuffield Foundation and brings together a review of existing research and of the range of statistics relevant to the Government's childcare strategy. The literature review and desk research have been supplemented by new secondary analysis of two key data sources: the Parents' Childcare Survey series and the Childcare Providers Survey series. The report addresses six key areas: Outcomes for children; Quality and the childcare workforce; The state of childcare provision; Parents' work patterns; Changes in patterns of childcare use and Childcare costs.

A summary of the comprehensive progress report on the Government's childcare strategy is available.

The full report is available to purchase. Please visit our online shop to purchase this title.

Listening to Families

Listening to black and minority ethnic parents about childcare

'Listening to black and minority ethnic parents about childcare' is one in a series of papers presenting the findings from the Daycare Trust Listening to families project. This report explores the findings from eight focus groups conducted with parents from different black and minority ethnic groups, asking them about their use of, views on, and needs for childcare.

Listening to parents of disabled children about childcare

'Listening to parents of disabled children' about childcare is one in a series of papers presenting the findings from the Daycare Trust Listening to families project. This report explores the findings from focus groups conducted with parents of children with disabilities and special educational needs around London, asking them about their use of, views on, and needs for childcare

Listening to lone parents about childcare

'Listening to lone parents about childcare' presents the findings from a series of focus groups conducted by Daycare Trust as part of the Listening to families project.

Listening to children about childcare

'Listening to children about childcare' presents the findings from a series of interviews and focus groups with children between the ages of 6 and 12 (up to age 18 for those with disabilities) about what they think about childcare. In the focus groups we explored with children their own experiences of childcare, their likes and dislikes, as well as their views on childcare more generally and what it means for children today.

The full reports in the Listening to Families series are available to purchase. Please visit our online shop for details.

The Listening to Families research series is funded the the Department for Children, Schools and Families

Childcare for children with additional needs

The London Development Agency commissioned Daycare Trust to undertake two pieces of research exploring the childcare needs of children with disabilities and special educational needs:

Listening to providers about childcare for children with disabilities and special educational needs

Listening to parents of children with disabilities and special educational needs

Ensuring Equality Project

Conducted between 2005 and 2008 the Ensuring Equality project, funded by the Esmée Fairburn Foundation, has aimed to explore the use of childcare services among black and minority ethnic (BME) families, raise awareness of the specific needs of different ethnic minority families, and make the voices of these families heard. Daycare Trust has produced five reports as part of this project:

• Ensuring Equality in childcare for black and minority ethnic families: a summary

This paper provides an overview of the work and findings of the whole Ensuring Equality project and highlights some of the challenges facing BME communities in accessing formal childcare services, and some of the approaches that are being taken to address these challenges.

• Local approaches to ensuring childcare for black and minority families

This report examines what is being done at a local level to monitor ethnicity within childcare settings and how this data is being used to increase the take-up of childcare by BME families.

• Ensuring Equality: The black and minority ethnic childcare workforce

This report, part of the Ensuring Equality Project, presents findings from a series of focus groups with childcare workers from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. The aim of the research was to explore with childcare workers their views on: engaging black and minority ethnic communities with childcare services; and recruiting and retaining childcare workers from black and minority ethnic communities, and the extent to which this addresses the question of how to increase uptake of childcare among different ethnic groups. The report provides some interesting insights into how childcare workers address different ethnic and cultural needs in childcare settings and their views on the importance of having an ethnically diverse childcare workforce.

• Listening to black and minority ethnic parents about childcare

Reports on parents' comments gathered at eight focus groups carried out across England in 2006-07.

• Ensuring Equality - black and minority ethnic families' views on childcare

Looks at the views and experiences of black and minority ethnic families and brought together qualitative and quantitative research.

The full reports in the Ensuring Equality series are available to purchase. Please visit our online shop for details.

Childcare for adult learners in further education

This project, funded by The Nuffield Foundation, looked at the funding available for childcare costs for adult learners, studying on a course of further education.

Access to further education (FE) and training is crucial if parents are to gain stable and well-paid employment. It is also vital for reducing child poverty. As the Leitch report states: “ensuring everyone has the opportunity to improve their skills is the best way to improve social mobility in the UK”. Access to affordable childcare is essential if parents are to be able to undertake FE and training, and childcare costs can be 'a formidable barrier'.

During the 2006-07 academic year, Daycare Trust’s Information Service received a number of calls reporting a shortage of childcare services and funding for FE learners. This has continued at the start of the 2007/08 autumn term. We are concerned that learners and potential learners are not gaining access to the childcare they need. This will have a negative impact on their ability to study and therefore obtain sustainable employment. If the Government is serious about enabling people to improve their skills, this ambition must be matched with childcare support and funding.

As the Government strives to get more parents into work and training, our new briefing paper highlights problems with funding support for childcare for adults in further education. Childcare for adult learners in further education examines the main sources of funding help with childcare available to student parents aged 20+ across the UK. In particular, it calls for reforms to the Learner Support Fund, the discretionary grant that is the main source of financial help for English student parents who need childcare.

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