The document discusses England's policies around early childhood from 1997-2010, including supporting parents through reducing pressures, enhancing capabilities, and intervening to safeguard children. Key themes were reducing child poverty and gaps in outcomes, evidence-based policy, and universal services with extra support for disadvantaged families. Recent policies focused on early intervention, redefining poverty, local control over services, and addressing high childcare costs, but cuts risk increasing child poverty. An ideal future system provides universal family support services adapted locally.

1. What should be the ‘offer’ for
children and parents: the England
experience
Naomi Eisenstadt
Senior Research Fellow, University of
Oxford
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2. The Role of Government: supporting parents
and parenting:
Reduce pressures
• Rights and legal protection
• Financial support
• Support in kind
For example:
• Access to maternity and paternity
leave
• Flexible working and flexible
childcare
• Targeted benefits
Enhance capabilities
• Information and guidance
• Skills and training
• Intervention
For example
• Before and after birth, midwife
and health visitor support
• Family Intervention programmes
• Family Nurse Partnerships
Intervening to safeguard
children

3. Basis for policy in 1997-1998
• Very high levels of child poverty, among the highest levels in
Europe, very low early years service base
• Labour Manifesto commitment to universal pre-school
education for 3 and 4 year olds (5 days a week, 2.5 hours per
day, school term time only) all children
• National childcare strategy designed to increase quantity,
accessibility, and quality of day care for working parents,
children of working parents
• Comprehensive Spending Review on Services for Children
under 8, HMT review that resulted in Sure Start poor children
– 3 different strands: early education, childcare, and
integrated services for poor children
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4. Key Themes consistent over the Blair-Brown era
• Reducing child poverty (PM announcement 1999)
• Reducing gaps in outcomes between poor children and the
rest
• Evidence based policy
• Supporting parents/supporting parenting
• Progressive universalism: System designed to ensure
maximum support for most disadvantaged within a universal
platform of services for all children
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5. England policy on early years, childcare and parenting:
2010
• Maternity leave extended to 12 months, paid leave for 9 months
• Right to request flexible working for all parents with children up to age 6 (in first 2 years, 25% of
working parents made request, 81% granted)
• Child poverty rate reduced by ½ (absolute measure) 15%, (relative measure)
• A Sure Start Children’s Centre in every community (offering from one site: childcare, parent
support, health services, employment advice. Mix of targeted and universal services.)
• All children in early years provision accessing single play based framework, EYFS
• legislation passed, making provision of Children’s Centres statutory duty for local authorities
• Legislation passed requiring every local area to have a strategy for reducing child poverty
Gap narrowing in school readiness between poor children and the rest based on Early years
Foundation Stage profile.
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6. Coalition Commitments: Families in the Foundation
Years (DfE 2011)
• Expectant mothers will be supported through universal, high quality maternity
care
• New parents supported in the transition to parenthood: Preparation for Birth and
Beyond, Family Nurse Partnerships
• Health visitors provide expert preventative healthcare for parents and children;
universal access to Healthy Child Programme
• Children’s Centres provide access to range of integrated universal and targeted
services
• All 3 and 4 year olds entitled to 15 hours free early education per week
• 40% of 2 year olds in bottom two quintiles also entitled to 15 hours free per week
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7. Key themes: the Coalition Govt
• Reaching the ‘neediest’
• Early intervention and prevention
• Redefining child poverty shifting the emphasis from income to
parental behaviours and circumstances
• New localism; removing ring fences on all dedicated funding for
particular children’s services
• Main DfE emphasis back on schools and pupils
• Benefits reforms to make ‘work pay’, must address high cost of
childcare
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8. Tensions and dilemmas: ameliorating the impact of
poverty or fewer poor children
Parents
• Employment
• Home learning environment
• Better parenting
‘behaviours’
• Mothers or fathers
Children
• School readiness, learning:
all children
• Child behaviour and
socialisation: poor children
• Shifting the curve or
addressing the tail
• Lifting the bottom (anti-poverty),
or flattening the
gradient (reducing
inequality)
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9. Evidence based programmes: the challenge of delivery
Wants yes
Needs yes
Ideal users, grateful and
compliant
Wants yes
Needs no
Benign neglect; probably
providing good voluntary
effort, good for child mix
Wants no
Needs no
Ignore, probably using other
local services, children fine
Wants no
Needs yes
Requires real resource to
engage, probably unpopular
with other users

10. Where are we now; big cuts.....
Actually, some good news
• Free entitlement to 15 hours a
week for all 3 and four year olds
maintained
• Poorest 40% of 2 year olds also to
get 15 hours a week free, but will
it be good enough?
• Expansion of Health visitor work
force by 50%
• Ongoing commitment to
Children’s centres?
But some real dangers
• Removal of the ‘ring fence’ on children’s
centre and child care funding, discretion
at local level
• Great emphasis on improved parenting to
reduce the likelihood of poverty in next
generation, weakening of commitment to
today’s poor children
• Strong emphasis on the ‘neediest’ and
payment by results funding systems
• Constant changes to funding mechanisms
for childcare, but still very little supply
side funding
• Biggest danger is increase in child poverty
as unemployment rises due to overall cuts
in public spending and changes to benefit
system
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11. And where to we want to be?
An evolving, flexible, universal family support service, designed and delivered locally:
• Universal high quality ante and post natal health services
• One year maternity/paternity leave paid at minimum wage level
• A network of children’s centres in poor areas that offer a mix of targeted
and open access services, including support for employment
• High quality childcare staffed by qualified practitioners who are paid a
decent salary
• Reception and primary classes that reflect the child centred nature of pre-school
provision
• A recognition by all policy makers that all families at some point need
support, that the intensity of help required varies over time
• Love and money are both essential, neither on their own is sufficient
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