Introduction

Northern Ireland lacks the childcare infra-structure and after-school provision to support these proposed changes. While we support the initiative to enable more lone parents to work it cannot operate effectively without appropriate and affordable childcare. We therefore recommend the regulations are not introduced in Northern Ireland for at least twelve months so that a lead department for childcare can be identified, a suitable strategy and investment plan devised and options for a Northern Ireland appropriate approach considered.

The Department for Work and Pensions proposes to introduce a range of new regulations to take effect from November 2008 which would have the effect of lone parents with a youngest child aged at least 12 no longer being entitled to Income Support solely on the grounds of being a lone parent, and from October 2009 when their youngest child reaches age 10 and from October 2010 when their youngest child reaches age 7.

The proposals include amendments to Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations so that Jobcentre Plus staff must consider whether appropriate and affordable childcare is available when determining whether a person with caring responsibilities in relation to a child had just cause for failing to take up paid employment or to comply with a jobseeker’s direction.  Mandatory quarterly work focused interviews for lone parents in their last year of their eligibility for IS.

The Law Centre’s main concerns about these proposals are:

	Historically Northern Ireland has had lower levels of childcare provision than elsewhere in the UK
	There is far less afterschool in Northern Ireland
	There is a lack of strategic policy direction and funding to facilitate the development of affordable and accessible community based childcare in Northern Ireland, in fact, no government department in Northern Ireland has lead responsibility for childcare. There is also no equivalent statutory duty to make provision for childcare to that which operates in England and Wales. As a result there is no immediate likelihood that deficiencies will be remedied.
	Lack of  appropriate childcare provision is one of the main barriers to lone parents re-entering the job market
	Linking conditionality to the availability and affordability of appropriate childcare, before and after school is therefore not a sustainable proposal.  Where a lone parent claims such care is not available, the onus should be on the Government to prove that it is available.
	The JSA regime is not sufficiently adaptable to deal with the complex realities of lone parents’ lives.

 

Background:

In a recent speech, the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said: “Childcare will no longer be seen as an afterthought or a fringe element of social policies, but from now on, as it should be, an integral part of our economic policy”

In Northern Ireland we still have a long way to go to achieve this.

The Explanatory Memorandum for SSAC in relation to the regulations to support the proposals to introduce increased lone parent obligations from 24 November 2008 states “The measures outlined in the Government’s proposals for Regulations is not intended to punish lone parents but to help them move closer to paid employment”.  While Law Centre (NI) welcomes the intention to reduce the numbers of children and families in poverty through measures designed to encourage parents into work we are greatly concerned that the level of childcare infra-structure in Northern Ireland is unable to sustain this without significant investment in realistic childcare solutions. These proposals will move over 2000 lone parents onto JSA during the first year and over 8000 lone parents onto JSA by the end of the third year of the proposals. We share the concerns of the Child Poverty Action Group that the JSA regime is not sufficiently adaptable to deal with the complex realities of lone parents’ lives and that greater conditionality is not justifiable. [1] Moreover, we doubt the wisdom of putting lone parents through the hoops of seeking work when it is recognised that sufficient levels of affordable childcare  is simply not available.

Historically Northern Ireland has lacked a strategic approach to childcare policy and provision and this has proven to be a barrier to many people seeking to re-enter the workplace after having children. We would argue this lack of infrastructure will make it extremely difficult for lone parents seeking work to put suitable arrangements in place to care for their children. In the Northern Ireland context we think the proposed conditionality is therefore unrealistic. Sanctions should not be applied where there is proven lack of affordable and suitable childcare provision.

Barnardos produced a series of reports in 2006 on child poverty in the UK, one of their recommendations is: “To extend access to high quality childcare by ensuring funding to sustain childcare provision in disadvantaged communities. Reliance on the market alone will not deliver for our poorest families”.[2]

The proposals under consideration, we believe, must link conditionality to the availability and affordability of appropriate childcare, before and after school. Where a lone parent claims such care is not available, the onus should be on the Government to prove that it is available.

 

Childcare Provision in Northern Ireland

Figures from the Department for Enterprise, Trade and Industry for June 2007 showed that there were 439 000 women in Northern Ireland. Of these, 353 000 were in work and 12 000 were unemployed or claiming benefit and 75 000 were economically inactive[3]. In the same report DETI stated there were 40 200 registered childcare places in Northern Ireland.  Using these figures and figures from the Census of the numbers of children aged 12 or under, Employers for Childcare in Northern Ireland estimate that there is approximately one registered childcare place for every seven economically active women.  

NICMA, the Childminding Association, in a recent study says: “ the available evidence suggests a serious shortage of childcare places in Northern Ireland, and the supply of places with registered childminders has been falling. Childminders account for 63% of  full-time daycare and 37% of all childcare places in Northern Ireland.[4]  One of their key findings was that nearly one third (30%) of parents who had recently looked for childcare said they had found the search “fairly” or “very” difficult and parents in rural areas were more likely to find their search difficult.

Working parents n Northern Ireland  depend greatly on informal childcare from grandparents, family and friends but as such provision is unregulated there  is no way of being specific about how many children are looked after in this way.  In a major study of childcare in Northern Ireland by Gray and Breugal in 2003, they concluded that the use of formal childcare remained low due to lower levels of provision here compared to the rest of the UK. They found that 25% of children under 12 in Northern Ireland had some form of informal care from somebody other than their parents. In a study  on lone parents views on childcare, Gray and Carragher (2007) found 34% of those lone parents they studied used family or friend for childminding[5]. However, this is not a satisfactory method of providing long-term sustainable care.  

Barriers to Lone Parents seeking paid employment

In Northern Ireland there are a number of barriers which prevent lone parents from seeking paid employment. A study by Skinner in 2003 exploring how parents reconcile work and family care concluded co-ordinating childcare is a skilled activity.[6] In particular, she highlighted the problems involved in synchronizing childcare, pre-school and primary education with work commitments and the availability of formal and informal support with transporting children at critical times. Skinner’s focus was primarily on the experience of two parent families. It is a fact that lone parents face even greater difficulties. Parents of young children need childcare if they are to participate in the labour market and childcare provision in Northern Ireland is patchy and expensive.  Gray and Carragher’s study of lone parents points out that problems of affordability and accessibility appear to be tackled through a heavy reliance on informal care.[7]

 

Low paid work

The cost of childcare is viewed by lone parents as a major barrier to returning to work . In Gray and Carragher’s study they say “childcare costs were frequently cited as the greatest barrier to returning to work, particularly where participants saw themselves as only having access to low paid work”.  In effect, they argue, there is a policy imperative which appears to encourage mothers to give up caring for their own children and to purchase care so they can be employed in the labour marker, often in the care sector, looking after other people’s children.[8]

 

Larger Families

Over one quarter of families in Northern Ireland has three or more children and 43% are low income households.[9]  Children in families where there are three or more children are between 50 and 180 percent more likely to be living in poverty than a child in a one child family.

Given that Working Tax Credit is paid at a standard rate regardless of the number of children in a family, and, that Childcare Tax Credits pay for 80% of the cost of regulated childcare, (£175 for one child and an upper limit of £300 for two or more children), it is easy to see the dilemmas faced by many parents on low incomes, particularly those parenting alone. Larger families have to meet these additional costs themselves. This goes some way to explaining why many lone parents rely on informal care structures which are often unreliable and likely to break down.

 

Childcare Policy and Funding in Northern Ireland

Childcare has long been considered a private responsibility but has been recognised since 1997 as a key element of tackling child poverty by facilitating parents to move into paid employment. There has been significant investment in childcare in England in recent years and while there has been a shift in policy making in Northern Ireland we have a long way to go to improve access to high quality accessible and affordable childcare. Further, the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister has responsibility for anti-poverty work and tackling child poverty.

In 2004 the UK Government published a ten year childcare strategy for the whole of the UK, Choice for parents, the best start for children”[10]  One of the objectives was “the delivery of  affordable high quality childcare places that meet the  circumstances for all families (with children up to age 14) who need it”. Responsibility for the implementation would be shared between the UK government and the devolved administrations.

In Northern Ireland four government departments, Department for Health, Social Services and Public Safety, Department for Employment and Learning, Department for Social Development and the Department of Education have some involvement in the provision and funding of childcare but there is no lead department. In addition, the Department for Agriculture and Rural Development has recently commissioned a report on rural childcare.  

As there is no one department with responsibility for childcare, funding has come from a wide range of sources including the European Union (EUSSPPR) and the National Lottery. The money from the European Union Special Support Programme for Peace and Reconciliation allocated £32 million between 1996 and 2000 and  a further £9 million between 2000 and 2006. The EUSSPPR was an initiative designed to support the transition of Northern Ireland to a peaceful society. The dangers of reliance on short term funding without any coherent government policy or strategy became clear when “Peace” funding ended in 2006 and over 200 voluntary sector out-of-school clubs faced closure.

In the last two years funding for an extended schools programme was made available in Northern Ireland. This package included £13.25 million for extended schools provision and £0.65 million to allow daycare within Sure Start Programmes. The Secretary of State (OFMDFM, 2006) said “this funding will identify and meet need for daycare in areas of deprivation to allow parents to access work or training”. However, such funding has yet to be mainstreamed and childcare provision hit another crisis in May this year when funding for 57 extended projects was in danger of not being renewed.

Over the last month since May 2008, PlayBoard, the organisation with responsibility for facilitating the extended schools programme, has been campaigning in Northern Ireland to avoid funding for 2800 childcare places being lost through withdrawal of this government funding.  The Funding scheme provided parents with affordable childcare to enable them to return to training, education or employment opportunities.  The Director of PlayBoard recently said, “at a time when living costs are soaring, those single parents and families who have been supported to return to work thanks to the initiative will now face soaring childcare costs. In many cases they will be unable to afford alternative childcare outside their immediate communities and may be forced back onto benefits”[11]. At the eleventh hour, with childcare workers facing redundancy at the end of June, an emergency payment was made by the DHSSPS which will keep projects going until 31 December 2008  after which funding will cease. As these projects provide community based childcare mostly in areas of high deprivation their loss will impact greatly on people on low incomes, many of whom are lone parents.

 

Conclusion

Lone parents face serious disadvantages in the job market and these proposals to sanction lone parents will be an additional burden.  We recognise that work is a way out of poverty for many families. However, the complexities faced by lone parents must be recognised in the rollout of these proposals. Voluntary employment programmes have been shown in the US and Australia to be more effective rather than compulsory programmes. Encouraging lone parents into training and jobs cannot be achieved on its own. It will require a range of measures including a range of childcare initiatives to address the current deficit.

The proposed measures will only get lone parents back to work if sufficient affordable childcare is in place in Northern Ireland. At present, there is no lead department responsible for childcare, no childcare or investment plan to support the benefit changes, no statutory duty on any public authority or government department to ensure sufficient childcare is available and no comprehensive coverage of after-schools clubs is likely to be introduced in the immediate term. These issues need to be addressed urgently and therefore we recommend the proposals are deferred for at least 12 months to allow for either the above deficiencies to be addressed or an alternative Northern Ireland approach devised to enable and encourage lone parents back to work.