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CHAPTER FOUR: SUPPLY-SIDE FACTORS

Table 4.1: Summary of Key Points

Introduction

4.1 In this section we highlight a range of supply-side factors that have emerged through developing childcare in response to the pilot. However, it is important to point out that provision was still in its infancy in some areas at the time fieldwork was conducted. Several of the issues presented may well be perceived rather than actual constraints experienced, or they may indicate short-term 'teething problems' which would be rectified in the medium-term.

4.2 Supply-side factors that emerged through case study consultations included:

• availability of venues
• ability to staff provision
• sustainability
• funding and the child tax credit
• location
• transport
• hours required
• youth and childcare.

Availability of Venues

4.3 Sourcing venues to house new provision caused a range of difficulties for pilot areas. This relates to:

• head teacher reluctance to house provision - it was highlighted that head teachers can be reluctant to accommodate childcare provision because of concerns that this will impose additional burdens and management responsibilities on the school:

"Head teachers are fearful because they think it's added responsibility for them, which isn't the case, that's our (Local Authority) role"

• lack of space in schools - both areas initially intended that some of the provision developed in response to the pilot would be based within local schools. However, this proved difficult as schools did not have the space available to accommodate childcare provision (consistently in the same place over a five day period):

"We've always had difficulty in trying to secure venues in schools, not all schools, but we have had a fight on our hands these past six years. Sometimes it's because there is simply no space."

"Schools weren't able to accommodate us."

"We wanted it [provision] in the primary school but the school is full… And it means a whole day, so a school has to give up a classroom for a full day, every day."

• lack of space in community venues - similar issues emerged when sourcing alterative premises to house provision such as community halls and adult learning facilities. Rooms were not available on a regular basis during the time periods required:

"Community centres don't have the rooms free either."

"We tried to use community venues, the problem being we can't get five days a week. We can get them for three days in one place and two in another but that's not ideal."

• compliance with Care Commission requirements - even where community premises were available, these often did not comply with Care Commission requirements. This meant that some of what was available could not be used for childcare, or that substantial investment (time and money) was needed to ensure the venue was of the required standard. This explains the time taken to establish childcare in Fife in particular;

"We needed to bring venues up to standard. We are duty bound to use our own Works Department. The Works Department are being very helpful in what can be a very slow process."

4.4 Taken together, these issues highlight the need to ensure that the lead-in time to develop childcare is sufficient and realistic and that venues can be sourced which will offer consistent provision of the necessary quality.

Ability to Staff Provision

4.5 Both areas highlighted a range of issues in terms of staffing provision such as:

• attracting staff to work atypical hours - several stakeholders highlighted that it can be difficult to attract staff to work atypical hours (early mornings, evenings and weekends)
• geographical issues - finding staff willing to work in diverse rural locations can be difficult, as knowledge of the area and local transport networks may be poor. This can make it difficult for staff to get to the area where they are required to work and provide Sitter Services, for example
• attracting suitably qualified staff - recruiting staff with an appropriate level of qualifications and training emerged as a key issue for some stakeholders. Although both Local Authorities had programmes in place to train staff, some providers felt that the requirement for staff training could deter potential recruits from entering the profession:

"The requirement to have half of all staff qualified can be a barrier, especially for older women who typically approach us. Our main concern in recruiting is that applicants have experience of looking after children and the right attitude. If they then wish to train, they are encouraged to do so."

• balancing the need to recruit quality staff with the need to get provision up and running in time for parents who need to access it can cause tensions. Interviewing, selecting and subjecting staff to disclosure procedures all takes time. This can mean provision is not ready (because staff are not in place) when parents need to access it;
• shifting parental demands for atypical provision making staffing difficult - parental demands for childcare can change, especially when parents work irregular shift patterns. This can make staffing difficult for providers. This issue becomes exacerbated when a core number of childcare places need to be filled for the business/provision to be viable;
• job insecurity - stakeholders endeavoured to resolve some of these issues by employing staff on casual contracts or through relief work. However, there is concern that this imposes additional problems in terms of staff retention, as casual contracts offer little in the way of job security.

"We haven't been short of applicants. It's just the time and the process. You've got to get the timing right. It's crucial and not an easy one to resolve. We sent out fliers to existing staff asking if anyone would be able to do relief work until we had recruited more staff… We need to advertise for more staff, then you need to interview staff and wait for disclosures and that takes quite a bit of time."

Sustainability

4.6 Developing childcare that could be sustained following the pilot was highlighted as a key difficulty. This was because it was felt that the pilot duration was simply not long enough for the issue of sustainability to be adequately addressed. Concerns were raised in both areas that provision may cease once the funding from the pilot came to an end:

"[When the pilot ends], we would have no choice but to close the provision. Obviously, we are not about closing provision and if we could source the funding elsewhere we would. But we do need money to keep it open."

4.7 Moreover, some stakeholders had concerns about continuing to strategically and systematically market provision in the latter months of the pilot. This was due to concern that this would 'send the wrong message to parents' who may well be let down should childcare be forced to close:

"The sustainability issue is a big, big problem because if lone parents go and take up a job, they want to know that the childcare is sustainable so they can stay in that job. They don't want to start the job and a few weeks later find that the childcare isn't there."

Funding and the Child Tax Credit

4.8 Both areas were conscious of the need to ensure that the childcare developed was affordable. As highlighted in Section Two, the issue of affordability was addressed in different ways depending on whether or not the childcare was registered or non-registered.

4.9 Where it is registered, working parents can access the childcare element of the Working Tax Credit. On top of that, other subsidies are offered. For example, Fife has a local scheme to further subsidise out of school care.

4.10 Where childcare is not registered (as was the case with the post-12 activity provision in Aberdeenshire) parents are not eligible to claim child tax credits. Therefore, pilot monies were used to subsidise provision to ensure that it was affordable for parents.

4.11 In addressing issues of affordability, several key issues emerged that are explored below.

Subsidising Non-Registered Childcare

4.12 The fact that Aberdeenshire had to subsidise the costs of new childcare because the provision was not registered has implications for future sustainability. This is because monies to sustain provision will need to be sourced from alternative sources once the pilot comes to an end.

Assisting Parents until Child Tax Credit are Received

4.13 The fact that registered childcare is made more affordable through the Government's system of tax credits raised some issues. These centred on the need to develop short-term strategies to assist parents with childcare costs in the intervening period until child tax credits are received. This is important since some childcare providers require that fees are paid in advance.

4.14 Strategies developed to address this included the Local Authority developing flexible strategies to help parents with the costs and the Jobcentre providing short-term assistance via the Advisor Discretionary Fund:

"parents get Working Tax Credit for childcare but there is a gap when people start work and private nurseries, childminders want a month up front and they're [parents] not going to get the money from the Inland Revenue for some time. So that can be a barrier."

"It can take a month to six weeks to even get their award. In that time, the job has started, they've had to buy new clothes."

Raising Awareness of Tax Credits

4.15 There is a need to reassure parents about issues of affordability. Some Local Authority stakeholders felt that parents are not always aware of tax credits and the fact that interim assistance can be provided. There is concern that parents do not trust the tax credit system because of perceptions that they may have to repay monies incorrectly allocated (this is explained further in the following section).

4.16 Some stakeholders felt that alleviating parents' concerns around tax credits should be the role of Jobcentre Plus:

"Parents will ring up and say - 'I don't get my money for another month. They want a huge deposit and I can't do it so I can't take the job.' - Only Jobcentre Plus can feed out that information. We can advertise all we like to encourage lone parents to come in the door but the people who have actually got lone parents in their hands are Jobcentre Plus."

Opportunities to Try Out Provision

4.17 Several stakeholders highlighted the importance of providing opportunities for parents to try out provision. This enables them to be confident that their child is safe and happy when they go out to work.

4.18 The pilot areas provided opportunities for parents to experience childcare provision through childcare tasters, open evenings and encouraging them to visit provider premises.

4.19 However, parents, particularly those who have been out of work for some time, can have a deep-rooted mistrust of formal childcare provision that can take time to overcome. This is a difficult issue to tackle when monies to support the costs of registered childcare are only available for working parents and has implications for the extent to which childcare can act as the ' push' rather than ' pull' into work ¹⁰.

4.20 The current situation presents a potential vicious circle. Parents may be reluctant to enter work because of concerns that their child will not settle with a childcare provider. However, parents may not be able to afford to pay for their child to become accustomed to the childcare before they enter work because they can only claim financial assistance through child tax credit if they are working.

4.21 In this way, whilst childcare developed through the pilot may help parents who have already made the decision to enter work and are looking for childcare to enable them to do that (work is the catalyst to childcare = pull), it perhaps does not help the reverse (childcare as catalyst to work = push).

Charging for Childcare Received

4.22 Local Authorities also tackled issues of affordability through offering differing charge out rates, a daily rate, half-day rate and hourly rate. Whilst beneficial for parents, this can cause difficulties for providers balancing the need to provide flexible childcare to meet parents' requirements and developing a viable and sustainable business.

Supply-side versus Demand-side Funding

4.23 Some providers highlighted that they had suffered from the Government's shift to demand-led funding (child tax credits). This is because, in endeavouring to be flexible, they permitted parents to use the childcare until the tax credits came through, only to be let down, in some cases, when parents did not pay for the childcare received or dropped out of work. This has implications for the extent to which suppliers of childcare are willing to focus on low income parents.

Location

4.24 Ensuring that provision is suitably located to meet the needs of parents is a key issue to be addressed in developing the supply of childcare.

4.25 The location of childcare presented a key challenge in Aberdeenshire due to the size and rurality of the county. Aberdeenshire addressed this through enhancing its Sitter Services. This approach afforded a means of providing flexible childcare to meet the needs of parents, including those working atypical hours, in a cost effective way.

4.26 In Fife, a number of implications emerged regarding the location of newly created childcare but not existing childcare.

4.27 Concerns were raised by some stakeholders (Jobcentre Plus advisors and providers) that the location of newly developed childcare was not in the right place. This related to its accessibility for lone parents and the employment opportunities available.

4.28 This is perhaps not surprising given that the Local Authority had to balance competing demands and tackle a range of obstacles in developing new provision, including:

• finding suitable and available premises
• developing registered childcare which is time-consuming and costly
• addressing issues of supply to ensure that places created could be filled
• balancing the demand for childcare for all parents with the specific demands of one parent families
• balancing the need to get Extended Hours childcare up and running with the need to place this in areas where there was a high concentration of lone parents and labour market vacancies.

Transport

4.29 A further factor affecting the supply of childcare was that of transporting children to and from differing types of provision.

4.30 Differing types of childcare, such as After School clubs and evening provision, may well not be located at the same venue. Therefore, consideration needs to be given as to how children can be transported from one childcare venue to another.

4.31 In the pilot, this issue was resolved by staff from the 3-6pm provision meeting the children at school and walking, or bussing them, to the venue, or by taxiing children from a number of schools to an After School Club.

4.32 However, at the time of fieldwork there was some concern that this issue had not been fully resolved in relation to out of hours provision running from 6pm-9pm in Fife.

4.33 The 6-9pm provision was based in the same venue as provision running between the hours of 3-6pm. Therefore parents could potentially leave their child with that provider between the hours of 3pm and 9pm. However, at the time interviews were undertaken, the 3-6pm session was running at full capacity whilst the 6-9pm session was not. This meant that potentially any new parents wishing to use provision between the hours of 3pm to 9pm would have to find an alternative provider between the hours of 3-6pm and then find a means of getting the child across to the 6-9pm provision.

4.34 Whilst the need to transport children from other After School Clubs to the Extended Hours venue had not occurred at the time the interviews were undertaken, there was some concern that this issue may transpire in the future or could already be adversely affecting take-up of the 6-9pm service. The LA were aware of this issue and had plans to extend the number of 3-6pm provision to overcome this.

Hours Required

4.35 Two key issues emerged with regards to the hours of childcare required.

Flexibility of Hours Required

4.36 The first relates to the issue of flexibility and the difficulties this causes for childcare suppliers. In developing childcare, Local Authorities have endeavoured to ensure that the childcare offered can be flexible to meet the diverse and shifting needs of parents.

4.37 However, shifting parental demands for childcare, (the number of hours and sessions required) not only causes problems for providers in relation to staffing as outlined above, but also in terms of:

• managing vacant places. Some parents may only require additional hours childcare from say, 6pm until 7pm on odd days because, for example, they are required to work late. Parents using additional hours childcare as a 'buffer' or safeguard on odd occasions causes tensions for providers in terms of managing/juggling the number of places they have available for other parents.
• determining the number of hot meals required - the changing needs of parents can also pose additional practical difficulties. An example was cited from one provider where meals had to be ordered a day in advance from the school. This causes difficulties when parents use the childcare at short notice.

Number of Hours Required

4.38 The second issue relates to the length of time children are placed in the care of others. Potentially, if lone parents of school-age children work evening or late night shift patterns, then their child could be in childcare from nine in the morning (whilst at school) until late in the evening (with an Extended Hours provider or Sitter). Local Authority staff were highly sensitive to this issue and in Fife they had employed a range of strategies to address it:

• by ensuring that childcare provision running at different periods of the day comprises differing programmes of activity
• by employing a system of checks and balances to ensure that a child did not continually remain in childcare for long periods.

"We change the care after 6pm; it's a completely different programme. You wouldn't want a child in school from early in the morning until nine/ten o'clock at night. We are monitoring that very closely. The Care Commission are hooked on that issue as well. We have to see how the new provision is going to work and take it from there."

Youth and Childcare

4.39 Developing childcare for older age children requires a different response and type/supply of provision than that required for younger children.

4.40 In both pilot areas the difficulties of providing childcare that was attractive to older children ( i.e. those age 12 or above) emerged as a key tension. It can be difficult to encourage children to attend After School Clubs for example, as they consider themselves 'too old' or because they 'don't like school' and therefore don't want to attend beyond the required school day.

4.41 Focusing on lone parents with children aged 12 and over, Aberdeenshire recognised this was a key area that needed to be addressed when developing new provision in response to the pilot. They therefore went down the route of developing activity-based 'care' such as recreational and sporting activities.

Summary

4.42 A range of issues emerged in relation to the supply of childcare. These related to the availability of venues, the ability to staff provision, sustainability, funding and tax credits, location, transport, range of hours required and the age of the child.

4.43 Such issues demonstrate the complexity of considerations that need to be taken into account in developing childcare as part of the pilot. Both areas have worked hard to develop childcare in the light of the obstacles and challenging timescales they faced.

4.44 It must be acknowledged that the LAs participating were championing the concept of extended hours and activity-based childcare. In pioneering such unique provision it is inevitable that teething problems will be encountered along the way. The issues raised in this report should therefore be considered in context. This was a pilot and both providers were testing out unique ways of responding to acknowledged gaps in childcare.

4.45 In addition to the supply-side factors discussed, there are a range of demand-side factors that have affected take-up of the provision developed. These are explored in the following section.

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