Gov call for views on childcare. Anyone else seen this?

[Sweetpea]

Department for Work and Pensions - 20 Jul 2012 10:05 Commission calls
for views on childcare


Parents, early years professionals and others with an interest in
childcare are being urged to come forward with their ideas to help
improve the accessibility and affordability of childcare.


http://www.wired-gov.net/wg/wg-news-...fi/DNWA-8WCJDR

[rickysmiths]

Well at least they are asking.

I like this quote:

Starting Well, produced by the Economist Intelligence Unit, ranked the UK fourth out of 45 countries in terms of quality, availability and affordability of early education for three to six year olds, ahead of Denmark, France and the Netherlands.

You see I don't think Childminders are anymore expensive in terms of % of income than it was 20 years ago when I put my daughter with a cm when I went back to work.

However I think parents expectations of what else they want to have is very different. We didn't have expensive holidays, we didn't have any for a few years. We only ran one car. We didn't have numerous mobile phones on expensive contracts. We didn't have Sky TV packages. We didn't go out.

I get the impression that a lot of people want it all and the fact is you can't children cost money and they are the parents responsibility not the states simple.

There is help for low income families via Tax Credits and for others there are Childcare vouchers which offer a saving as well.

I also think that some more time should be spent getting some of the nurseries to look at their costs. Though of course they are private enterprises the same as us and they expect to make a profit as well.