Childcare support

More on how to offer families benefits more effectively. Last month's OECD report on child poverty suggested that the general approach taken by Nordic countries to offer benefits in kind (particularly childcare) rather than in cash tends to work better. The Department for Education has just published reports on its childcare costs affordability pilots, an attempt by DfE and HMRC (under the previous government) to assess how far childcare costs are a barrier to parents getting back to work. Two of the pilot projects, which were conducted in London, were brought to an early close as part of the Government's spending cuts. There are reports on the three strands: the 100% costs pilot, the actual costs pilot and the disabled children's pilot. The Daycare Trust responds positively to the reports' findings and calls on the government to reconsider its recent cut in levels of childcare costs covered in the tax credit system (down from 80% to 70%).