Childcare

(asked on 17th January 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve the childcare offer for working families.


Answered by
Claire Coutinho Portrait
Claire Coutinho
Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
This question was answered on 25th January 2023

The department is committed to supporting working families and parents back into employment, by improving the cost, choice, and availability of childcare. We have spent over £3.5 billion in each of the past three years on early education entitlements, supporting families with the cost of childcare.

In July 2022, the department announced measures to increase take-up of childcare support and reduce the costs and bureaucracy facing providers. We announced a £1.2 million marketing campaign via the Childcare Choices website to ensure that every parent knows about the government-funded support they are eligible for and encourage providers to take the necessary steps to offer the full range of childcare support to parents using their services. The Childcare Choices website is available at: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/. The campaign has driven extensive reach, with adverts being viewed through paid search advertising and digital channels on social media 59 million times. There has also been strong engagement in the campaign, with 77,995referrals to GOV.UK pages from the Childcare Choices website during the first burst of the campaign.

We also said that we will attract more people to childminding, expand the childminder market by reducing the costs and bureaucracy facing providers and encourage the growth of childminder agencies, enabling greater access to this flexible, affordable form of care. These plans aim to give providers more flexibility and autonomy and ensure families can access government support to save them money on their childcare bills. The full announcement can be found online at at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/drive-to-reduce-the-cost-of-childcare-for-parents.

We continue to work across government, looking at ways to make childcare more affordable and accessible for working families, and to encourage families to use government-funded support they are entitled to.

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