Finally Some Good News About Child Care
With the final refinements of this article complete, I reclined in my chair with a wry smile. The clock positioned imposingly above the desk confirmed my mission was a success: finishing before the workplace’s adjournment at 5:30. Thirty minutes later and the Government was collapsing.
Needless to say it was unfortunate timing. The speaker at our monthly ‘The Next Generation’ event was now, well, no longer in a job – making things quite difficult as he was set to take stage within the next twenty minutes. But also now it meant the gaze of public attention was casted far from an article on child care deregulation written by a nineteen year old policy wonk. But with the real worry that by the time this article was posted the children which were intended to benefit from it would have begun sprouting facial hair and socialising over a bottle of raspberry-flavoured vodka at the local park, I am much relieved in a degree of political clarity being restored.
Amidst all the recent carnage with the leadership election, there is some timely news for families. The Department for Education (DfE) has finally come forth and provided solutions to fix the ‘broken’ child care system.
Faced with some of the highest costs in Europe, new-time parents are regularly required to fork out a higher proportion of their income on child care costs than their mortgage. As was expressed in our briefing paper ‘Pulling Out All the Stops: How the Government Can Go for Growth and Cut the Cost of Living’, this is primarily due to child:staff ratios in the United Kingdom – that being the number of infants each individual child care worker can look after – being some of the most stringent in the world. With an estimated 77% of child care costs going towards the overheads of care centres, relaxing the burdensome child:staff ratios will allow this cost to be spread across a wider population, and so reduce the amount paid by each individual family.
Needless to say we weren’t overly optimistic. The Government has so far addressed the cost of living crisis with the quiet stolidity of a taxidermied moose. Yet by no means were we the lone patron genuflecting at the deregulating altar. The Centre for Policy Studies and CapX’s Deputy Editor, Alys Denby, has been rallying the cause in all corners of discourse, including a scathing piece in the New Statesman which concluded ‘I thank Boris Johnson for trying to tackle this problem. After all, if he can have seven (or eight) kids, why shouldn’t a professional childminder look after a few more?’
In hindsight our worries proved unfounded. The DfE indeed have shown their capacity to listen, recently deciding to relax child:staff ratios for two year olds from 1 to 4, to a now looser 1 to 5. Meaning one staff member can now look after an additional child from what they could previously.
Irrespective of our recommendation being watered-down further than the Pimms served at a sixth-form prom, we greatly welcome the direction set out upon. Strict child:staff ratios are a poor method of mandating quality within care centres, with one study finding that ‘variations in [child:staff] ratios have small, if any, associations with concurrent and subsequent child outcomes’. They have also been seen to bring undue harm through forcing families into using cheaper alternatives, such as non-relative home care, which has been found to regularly fall short of that given by a care centre.
Relaxing child:staff ratios has proven itself as the surest way to reduce child care costs. An investigation into such ratios found that loosening by just one child is estimated to reduce cost by 9-20%. The Government have taken a more modest line, predicting that their change will bring a £150 reduction in costs for families each month. A sizable amount amidst the troubling times we find ourselves in, with the squeeze on household incomes currently the worst in three decades.
And yet, the Government must still go further. Bringing our child:staff ratios inline with that of Austria and Portugal (currently pegged at 1:7) would offer further relief for families, and lift a real burden off the back of many who find their pockets cash-stricken.
The relaxation of child:staff ratios appears as a repressed memory of how a policy ought to be – employing reason, rationality, and above-all-else common sense in solving the problems facing the nation. It has a proven track record of success and gives little reason to be feared. The next Government, whatever form it may take, would be well-advised to maintain this momentum and loosen child:staff ratios still further.
