Direct subsidies would improve affordability and improve services, high-level body to be told
Parents should not be given tax relief for childcare on the basis that this would do little to improve quality or assist less well-off families, a high-level Government group will be told on Tuesday.
Instead, childcare groups will urge policymakers to subsidise places directly in creches, as now happens under the free preschool year programme.
This, they argue, will result in a “double dividend” of making places affordable while improving quality to support children’s development.
