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CHAPTER NINE: CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION
9.1 Prior research suggests that a lack of affordable, accessible childcare is the single most important barrier to work for lone parents on Income Support. The Extended Schools Childcare pilot aimed to address that barrier through providing 'a virtual childcare guarantee' to lone parents not in work. In doing so, the pilot aimed to help lone parents and partners of benefit recipients into work. The pilot operated in two areas of Scotland: Aberdeenshire and Fife.
9.2 It is clear that it has taken considerable time and investment to set up and implement the pilots in both areas. Substantial progress has been made in terms of developing additional, flexible and innovative forms of childcare to meet the diversity of parental need to supplement what was already in place. This includes:
- unique responses to childcare in the form of Extended Hours provision, activity-based provision and Sitter Services. Such provision affords parents the opportunity to take up employment outside of conventional working hours or to place their older age children in more inventive forms of childcare
- the creation of a vacancy manager post to provide better, more up-to-date information on available childcare
- the use of 'top-up' subsidies for low income families to supplement tax credits
- employing the use of variable charge-out rates to ensure that parents only pay for the childcare they use
- developing different programmes of care that are tailored to the child's age/life stage and that offer a range of diverse and stimulating activities throughout the day.
9.3 Take-up of childcare by lone parents and partners has been mixed. None of the lone parents referred to the pilot via Jobcentre Plus have taken up the offer of childcare and moved into work as a result. Notwithstanding the limitations of the MI available, the evidence suggests that the outcomes of the pilot in relation to entry to employment by lone parents as a result of the availability of childcare are low. This is likely to have been affected - at least partially - by timescales.
9.4 Developing new provision has not been without major challenges and the pilot areas have worked hard to address the wide range of supply- and demand-side factors they face. Inevitably, there are still some limitations in terms of the extent to which the childcare available is accessible, affordable and of quality (by virtue of whether or not it is registered) overall, and the extent to which this matches parental preferences regarding the type of childcare required.
9.5 Given that progress in setting up and implementing the pilots has been slower than anticipated and that there is a lack of awareness of what is available, the assertion that lack of affordable, accessible childcare is a significant barrier to work for lone parents has not yet been adequately tested in the case of Extended Hours and weekend provision.
9.6 The evidence suggests that for some lone parents the availability of formal childcare presents a significant barrier to employment. Some of these lone parents perceived there to be a lack of childcare in areas the pilot had specifically sought to address. This implies a need to raise awareness of the availability of childcare.
9.7 However, for a significant proportion of lone parents, the belief that parents should be there to parent their own children appears to be the prevailing barrier. For these lone parents decisions to enter work are not simply about providing accessible, affordable childcare. Removing the childcare barrier also means alleviating parental fears/mistrust of childcare and changing their preferences for informal childcare.
9.8 Regardless of parents' views towards formal and informal childcare, the evidence suggests that the issue of childcare is often interlinked with a multitude of other issues that affect their orientations to work. The barrier of childcare then is perhaps not best tackled in isolation but as part of a wider/diverse package of support. This is because childcare might be one of several barriers. Furthermore, the extent to, and ways in, which childcare constitutes a barrier can change over time. This depends on the interrelationship of the childcare barrier with the other obstacles lone parents may face. As the work of Bell et al. is testament, different types of intervention may well need to be provided for different types of lone parent.
Summary: Meeting the Research Aims
9.9 To summarise, the research had four key aims:
- Aim One: to assess the assumption that 'a lack of affordable, accessible childcare is the single most important barrier to work for lone parents on Income Support' 17. Whilst the evidence suggests that a lack of affordable, accessible childcare is a significant barrier for some lone parents, it does not emerge as the central barrier for others. The degree to which 'childcare' presents a barrier depends on how 'childcare' is defined (as formal or informal childcare). For some lone parents the availability of affordable formal childcare is a key (childcare) barrier. However, for others, it is preferences for parental and informal childcare that influence decisions ( i.e. parental beliefs of childcare as the ' barrier' to work, although parents themselves may not label this a barrier as such). However defined, the evidence suggests that childcare is often interlinked with a range of other barriers rather than being a single issue to be addressed
- Aim Two: to assess the extent to which the pilot succeeded in removing this (childcare) barrier or otherwise. The research evidence suggests that the pilot has only partially met its aim to remove the childcare barrier. This is for a range of reasons that relate to:
- the restricted timescale which meant registered out of hours childcare was not available or accessible until the pilot had almost reached completion
- the tensions between supply-side and demand-side factors that meant inevitably there was a trade-off between developing childcare that was cost effective (supply) and meeting parental preferences for the type of childcare preferred (demand)
- limited awareness of what was available. - Aim Three: to assess the extent to which the removal of the childcare barrier leads to higher rates of entry into work. It is not possible to quantifiably assess rates of entry into work. This is because of limitations relating to:
- the extent to which the childcare barrier was effectively removed
- the availability and accuracy of the MI provided
- timescales.
Qualitative feedback revealed only one instance of a lone parent entering employment that could be directly attributed to the pilot and the availability of formal childcare.
- Aim Four: to assess whether other factors take over and prevent lone parents entering work once affordable and accessible childcare is available. The evidence suggests that barriers to work for lone parents are perhaps not best tackled consecutively, but rather simultaneously. This is because the childcare barrier does not appear to operate in isolation but moreover, it operates in different ways for different lone parents.
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