The Truss administration made many missteps, but on childcare it was on the right track. Though details were lacking, the blink-and-you-miss-her prime minister was planning to rush through ‘big bang’ changes to childcare provision that would bring down costs both for parents and providers.
But it has now been reported that Rishi Sunak will shelve these proposals indefinitely and, if they are ever dusted off, it’s likely the scale of reform will be much smaller. This is a mistake. Our pre-school and childcare sector is broken. It’s unaffordable both for parents and the taxpayer and increasingly inaccessible. Providers are also closing at record levels and staff retention is poor.
Childcare is a case study in what goes wrong when government is lobbied by single-interest groups to expand its role in a particular sector. Back in the 1990s, childcare was largely private or charitable. Parents could either care for children themselves or pay for external childcare provided by private nurseries or childminders in a domestic setting.
Successive interventions in the intervening period have cost the taxpayer billions and transformed childcare into a branch of education.
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