by Nathan Archer
In June 2024 the Office for National Statistics (ONS) released data on levels of childcare accessibility across local areas in England including the characteristics of areas with lower or higher “levels of access”. The data take the form of ratio of childcare places to number of children aged 7 and under and contain socio-economic information at local authority area level. At the same time a user-friendly map was launched enabling searches by postcode which reveal the number of “accessible” places in an area. Interestingly, inputting my home postcode show that “there are 2 childcare places per 100 children aged 0 to 7 years, accessible from this neighbourhood”. Notably, the figures only include group-based providers and childminders, and not school-based provision making the statistics partial and potentially misleading.
A systems perspective
In October 2024 these data were analysed on gov.uk:
Accessible childcare is essential for promoting child development and supporting working families. To achieve these benefits, it is vital to ensure that all families have access to childcare close to where they live, whether by car, public transport or walking.
Using this definition of accessibility, analysis revealed childcare “deserts” (areas that have faced low childcare accessibility over time) and childcare “oases” (areas that have benefited from consistently high childcare access over time) across the country.
This definition of accessibility takes a systems level approach, and will no doubt help with local authority sufficiency duties and place management. But it masks a wider discussion about the extent to which families can actually access the early education they need for their children and where and when they choose it. I question whether the ONS data are about accessibility, but rather they are about the supply of places within a supply and demand framework.
A family-centred perspective:
Those working in early childhood education will be very aware that unlike primary school admissions, often partially determined by geographical catchments, access to and reasons for choice of early education setting differ significantly.
Taking a family-centred approach to accessibility would involve using family-level data to examine issues related to families’ needs through the family’s point of view. I want to suggest that accessibility is not just defined by proximity of provision to home or parents’ work, but also includes issues of affordability, equity and inclusion. Drawing on work from the US Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation helps broaden and deepen these understandings of accessibility. A report from 2020 proposes consideration of additional dimensions of access:
- The first dimension of access to early childhood education (ECE), reasonable effort, suggests that there must be sufficient availability of age-appropriate ECE places near parents’ homes or workplaces, and information about those ECE options must be readily available.
- The second dimension of access, affordability, reflects a broad definition of cost, including any additional cost to parents, subsidies or financial assistance, as well as costs incurred by ECE programs for providing services.
- The third dimension of access to ECE is supporting the child’s development, that states families should be able to obtain the education and care that is high quality and meets children’s developmental needs.
- The fourth dimension of access to ECE states that families should be able to obtain ECE that also meets the parents’ needs across a variety of factors, including parental preferences for specific setting types or features, or the need for extended care, care during non-traditional hours, or care for multiple children.
- The fifth, dimension of access to ECE is equity, intended to highlight disparities in availability, affordability, quality, and other characteristics of ECE, and can be defined as the ability to reach underserved or disadvantaged children. I would also suggest that this includes access to appropriate provision for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).
Notwithstanding the usefulness of the ONS data, I suggest that there is a need for future work on accessibility to include measures of access that incorporate factors related to characteristics of families (eg families’ capacity to travel to services, parents with schedules that require nonstandard or flexible hours of care, etc).
There is a need for future work that accounts for community contexts and the match between those needs and the existence of services that align. This would pay particular attention to potential differences in demand and additional barriers to access and fit of services to meet the needs of different cultural, socio-economically disadvantaged, populations. There is also a need for a wider discussion and continued exploration of how best to combine and consider different measures of access across multiple dimensions (both systems perspectives and family perspectives), to ensure all children have access in the broadest terms to the best possible services.
: Dr Nathan Archer is an independent researcher in early childhood education.
References
Ofsted (2024) Commentary: Changes in access to childcare in England https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-access-to-childcare-in-england/commentary-changes-in-access-to-childcare-in-england
Office for National Statistics (2024) Commentary: Changes in access to childcare in England Childcare accessibility by neighbourhood: Levels of access to childcare vary across local areas in England. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/educationandchildcare/articles/childcareaccessibilitybyneighbourhood/2024-06-04
Thomson, D., Cantrell, E., Guerra, G., Gooze, R., & Tout, K. (2020). Conceptualizing and Measuring Access to Early Care and Education. OPRE Report #2020-106. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.