SOCIAL MARKET FOUNDATION
dramatically increased investment in childcare. Consequently, pre-school education has developed into what the former Prime Minister Tony Blair described as a “new frontier of the welfare state” and a modern public service. 84 Its late maturation in this country has enabled some market features of modern public services to be applied to it: funding is largely determined by the choices of users; there is competition between a mixture of providers; co-payment is common; and the market is locally managed. 85 Between 1997 and 2007, the Labour Government spent £17 billion on early years and childcare services in England, kick-started by the first ever National Childcare Strategy published in 1998. 86 This aimed to radically improve the affordability, quality and availability of childcare to help child development and allow parents to access work and training. 87 The OECD described the injection of funding between 1997 and 2001 as “an unprecedented effort”. 88 The OECD also commented that, between 2003 and 2007, “the UK strengthened its position as one of the biggest investors in families in the OECD”89. In 2007, public expenditure on childcare and early years education was among the highest in the OECD, lower only than Denmark and Sweden.90 Box 2.1 is a detailed description of the tapestry of supply-side and demand-side government support that is available for families to help with childcare costs.
84 Tony Blair, Speech to Labour Party Conference, 27 September, 2005. 85
Charlotte Alldritt, Jeff Masters, Sarah Gerritsen, Henry Kippin, A brief history of public service reform (London: 2020 Public Services Trust at the RSA, 2009), 41.
86
Philip Blackburn, Children’s nurseries UK market report 2009 seventh edition (London: Laing and Buisson Ltd, 2008), 110.
87
HM Government, Meeting the childcare challenge (London: HMSO, 1998), 3-4.
88 OECD, Starting strong: early childhood education and care (Paris: OECD, 2001), 180-181. 89
OECD, “Doing better for families: UK children”, http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/61/32/47701096.pdf.
90
OECD, “Public spending on childcare and early education”, OECD Family database, http://www.oecd.org/ dataoecd/45/27/37864512.pdf.
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