| From this month, working parents of two-year-olds in England are entitled to 15 hours of government-funded childcare each week in term time. That will be extended to working parents of all children older than nine months in September. A year after that, the entitlement for those families will increase to 30 hours a week. The government estimates that these plans will mean a doubling in childcare spending over the next few years, from £4bn to £8bn a year. “That would definitely be a positive thing if the sector was in a position to deliver it,” Alesha De-Freitas said. Instead, the picture is “patchy, chaotic, and unpredictable”. The problem is that expanding free hours has not been matched by a commitment to funding them in full, De-Freitas said. “And outside of the free hours, the cost of childcare is likely to go up to help pay for it.” As things stand today, in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development index of 38 countries, the UK has the highest cost of childcare for parents as a proportion of women’s median full-time earnings – a key reason for the persistence of the gender pay gap. That is one reason the Fawcett Society looked closely at Australia, Estonia, France, Ireland and Canada – all countries that have recently transformed their systems. “There’s never going to be a place that is a perfect match that you can just copy,” De-Freitas said. “But we wanted to see what we could use to get from where we are to a better system.” Here’s some of what they learned. Make a long-term plan Instead of the incremental changes that are typical of the development of childcare in England, the most successful systems consult lots of experts, set out a clear long-term plan, and commit to implementing it. “You have to have transparency,” De-Freitas said. “You need to say clearly to people, if you decide to have kids the system will be there for you in a long-term way.” In Ireland, an independent expert body was assembled with the resources to commission research. And because the government had already committed the money, they knew they were likely to be taken seriously. There and in Australia, draft findings were published along the way. “That is not what the UK is doing,” De-Freitas said. In Estonia, all children between 18 months and seven years old are entitled to childcare. Because of this, De-Freitas said, “You hear people talk about things like the difficulty of getting speech and language experts into nurseries. We never talk about things like that, and it’s not because we need them less – it’s always just about, what is childcare for, and what does it cost?” End ‘activity tests’ to reach the worst off The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates the poorest third of families will see almost no benefit from the government’s plan to expand childcare, because the offer is contingent on being in paid work. In Australia, these “activity tests” were not found to have increased women’s workforce participation – while two-thirds of poorer families were being charged for some childcare. An expert commission has now recommended they be dropped. Canada is planning to offer $10 (£5.80) a day childcare by 2026. In Quebec, where a similar policy has been in place since 1997, women’s employment rose from 63% to 75% in 15 years. There are also significant disadvantages for children from minority groups, who are much less likely to take up free entitlements than their white peers. “That is about making sure that childcare is culturally inclusive and welcoming – there is a wealth of evidence, for instance from how New Zealand focused on integrating Māori children, of how powerful that can be.” Meanwhile, in the UK a 2005 study found that just 16% of mothers with disabled children worked, compared with 61% of all mothers. At the moment, many children with disabilities and special educational needs are being turned away because nurseries don’t have the expertise or capacity to care for them. Fund nurseries instead of children | 