Written evidence from the Children’s Commissioner

Poverty and Holiday Childcare

There are currently 4.1 million children living in poverty, the majority of whom (69%) are in households where at least one parent works. Children in lone parent households are particularly at risk of being in poverty, with 47% of all children in these households in poverty. Even in lone parent households where the parent works full-time 30% of children are still in poverty, while only 7% of children in couple families where both parents work full time are in poverty.

For working parents childcare during the holidays - whether formal or informal is a necessity.  Lone parents have particular need for childcare as they do not have a partner with whom they can share childcare. Whilst not ideal, in the absence of good quality, affordable childcare, in couple families working parents can sometimes arrange to take holidays from work consecutively in order to minimise childcare costs, while this is not an option for lone parents. The burden of paying for additional holiday childcare will therefore fall particularly heavily on poor and  lone parents.

Few jobs fit with school times and It is particularly challenging for poorer parents in insecure jobs, or working more than one job, to be able to reliably take time off. A recent survey showed that 50% of people thought that those on zero hours contracts were not entitled to holiday pay; this lack of awareness can allow employers to exploit workers in precarious employment[1]. Recent research has found 5% of employees were receiving no holiday pay[2].

Use of Childcare

There is information to suggest that many families, particularly poorer families, are simply not able to make use of formal childcare provision during the holidays, meaning that they will either not be able to work during the holidays, or that their children will be looked after by a combination of friends, family and unregistered providers.

There has been some research which suggests that lone parents are more likely to leave work and start claiming benefits during the summer holidays[3], and other research which describes how the lack of flexible childcare can be a significant barrier for lone parents required to start looking for work under JSA[4]. 63% of lone parents who aren’t working say that they would like to if they can find the right childcare[5].

During the school holidays, only 11% of families in the poorest households use formal childcare[6], and while spending time with extended family can be good for children, it means that they are missing out on the kind of high quality holiday provision that their better off friends may attend. This could mean that they are left unsupervised or in inadequate care, being passed from pillar to post, resulting in the kind of negative effects we discuss in the next section.  65% of all families reported that there needed to be improvements in the childcare available during the summer holidays[7]. There is clearly an unmet need from parents, particularly lone parents, for better childcare provision for their children.

It is interesting to note that while the numbers of families using formal childcare during the holidays has stayed steady over the past ten years, the number using informal childcare (such as grandparents or friends) has gone down from 35% to 27%, which may explain the increasing number of families who do not use any childcare during the holidays, 62% compared to 50% ten years ago. This is concerning if it means that parents are simply not able to find appropriate childcare for their children, and so potentially leaving children without care or having to stop work.

Childcare Support Available

There are a variety of mechanisms in place to support families with their childcare costs:

However, there are significant issues with many of these supports, particularly for low income families during school holidays. Parents who are entitled to the childcare element of Working Tax Credit have to estimate their childcare costs over the year, which can create difficulties when it comes to holidays – they have to predict how much extra they will need over the holidays, include that in creating an average of costs, and then save throughout the year to cover it.

Universal Credit is perhaps even more challenging though – parents have to pay upfront for any increased childcare costs in each assessment period and then claim it back; if they have a big increase in costs in August, for example, they won’t have had a way to save for that in advance. In addition, lone parents of 3 and 4 year-olds have to spend 16 hours a week either in work, or looking for work for 16 hours (under Income Support, lone parents of under 5s do not need to be in work) – if they are not yet in work they will not be able to get the childcare element of Universal credit to cover time spent job-seeking.

Free childcare for 2,3 and 4 year-olds must be offered for a minimum of 38 weeks a year, but parents can ask to stretch it over 52 weeks instead. Although there is no data on how many children use the entitlement over more than 38 weeks a year, the data shows that the large majority of children (particularly those in school-based provision) are using between 12 and 15 hours a week; if parents were stretching the hours over 52 weeks, we would expect children to be attending for about 11 hours a week. Recent research suggested that school based providers in particular would expect parents to pay for any childcare offered beyond the standard 38 weeks of ‘term-time’[8]. As noted above, for those who are required to work, or search for work, for at least 16 hours a week this will mean particular challenges during the holidays.

Availability of Holiday Childcare and Costs

Some Local Authorities and private providers offer holiday playschemes or subsidised childcare for parents, although in one survey only a quarter of Local Authorities felt they had sufficient childcare for working parents during the summer holidays[9].

It is difficult to get exact information about the provision of holiday childcare - unfortunately, since 2013 the Childcare Survey of Providers, carried out by the Department for Education, no longer asks about the registered number of holiday places, and providers who only look after children over 8 do not have to register.

Although the government introduced a ‘right to request’ that schools provide after-school or holiday care, we do not have data about how much this is actually being used. A survey conducted before the right to request found that only 29% of schools offered some form of holiday provision, even though there is a great deal of evidence to show the benefits it can have for children from disadvantaged backgrounds[10]. The Family and Childcare Trust survey found that only 4% of Local Authorities found that the ‘right to request’ had a positive impact on availability of childcare in the holidays[11].

Even when holiday care is available, the costs can be very high – one survey found that parents paid an average of £26.50 a day for holiday clubs. The Family and Childcare Trust survey found that the average price of holiday childcare for school age children is £133 per week in Britain. This is a 4 per cent rise since 2017.

There has been a limited response to this issue from government – last year, for example, in response to a survey showing that a third of parents felt stressed about paying for holiday childcare, a joint response from Liz Truss and Nadhim Zahawi simply reminded parents of their existing tax-free childcare entitlements[12]. There was also the announcement in June 2018 that government would pilot a £2 million scheme for the provision of activities and meals for children over the summer holidays, with an addition £9million announced in December 2018[13].

Impact on Children

Provision of affordable , high quality care and activities in the holidays is likely to be beneficial to all children, but particularly for those children in poorer families. It is essential for children of working families to ensure that they are not left unsupervised or in inadequate provision, but can also provide beneficial opportunities to children from non-working families – for these children, care would need to be very low cost or free.

We found in our report last year – Playing Out – that the lack of childcare and holiday opportunities could make the school holidays a time of loneliness and inactivity for children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Children we spoke to discussed how they couldn’t always afford to take part in the same activities as their friends, and that could leave them feeling lonely. Most children we spoke to told us that they would spend most of their time online, playing games or on social media, meaning lots of time spent sitting down indoors. This can have a knock-on effect on their health - research has shown that children’s fitness levels reduced over the summer holidays, and that this was particularly true for more deprived children[14].

There is also research which suggests that children from lower income households face a learning loss’ the long summer holidays – while their better of peers may be benefitting from enriching educational opportunities, lower income families are having to juggle between inadequate arrangements relying on family and friends, without high quality activities[15].

Another concerning impact of poverty during school holidays can be children going hungry. There is a range of research to show that children could be at risk of food insecurity during the holidays, although there is no data available on the true extent of the problem[16]. Our vulnerabilities report estimated that as many as 1.8million children could be experiencing food insecurity; for the 1.1 million children who receive Free School Meals this problem could be exacerbated in the holidays[17]. Some estimates have put the value of Free School Meals at between £30 and £40 a week, although of course this depends on the number of children in a family[18]. For a family living on a very tight budget, this is a significant additional cost during the school holidays. Research shows that the majority of the poorest families do not have any savings, which could be used to cover this cost[19]. The Trussell Trust reported that during last year’s summer holiday they distributed more emergency food parcels for children than during term time[20].

Finally, our research into children being groomed into gangs raises some questions about children’s safety in the school holidays. Children from low income families are less likely to be in formal holiday provision, and will instead need to look for free activities in parks and public spaces – but many spoke to us about feeling unsafe in these places, and being scared of older groups of children. If they do not have somewhere safe to go to, we are concerned that they could be more vulnerable to exploitation by gangs. In addition, we know that one of the key indicators for children at risk of criminal exploitation is them going missing, and truanting from school; during the summer holidays there is less oversight of these children meaning that these kind of concerns may be less likely to be flagged up.

What needs to be in place

We believe that a renewed and invigorated commitment from government to school holiday childcare is needed.

We believe this should include renewed incentives and funding for schools to open up their facilities during school holidays.  Schools are valuable community assets and practical venues for childcare which are known and trusted by children and parents.  School facilities are designed with children in mind and have valuable resources in sport and arts. Not all of the school would need to be open and the expectation would be that external organisations would organise and run the holiday programmes. All Local Authorities should ensure that their Childcare Sufficiency Assessments record how many schools are open during the school holidays, and the kind of care they provide, and encourage schools to open up their premises.

The right to request is a good first step but is not widely known about or understood. We believe government should strengthen the expectation and make funds available to run schemes in 50% of schools over time.

There should be increased direct grants to holiday play schemes in disadvantaged areas, with a particular focus on areas of Given the difficulties associated with using childcare benefits during the school holidays, the Treasury should consider direct grants to holiday and out-of-school play schemes, to help the most disadvantaged parents get access to childcare. There should be a particular focus on areas of high youth violence. While the recent announcement of £9million for organisations to delivery holiday play schemes for disadvantaged children is welcome it is clearly a drop in the ocean when it come to the level of need.

In addition, Local Authorities should be required to collect data on which schools have had requests for wraparound provision, whether they were refused or accepted, and the reasons for this. The continued roll-out of Universal Credit should be paused until an impact assessment on families with children, including the different financial pressures during school holidays, is carried out.

June 2019