The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said co-operative social enterprise models for childcare - where businesses are run by employees, parents or local communities - could be more effective in retaining staff by providing better pay and conditions and greater employee participation in decision-making.
The IPPR report, Co-operative Social Enterprise and its Potential in Public Service Delivery, said delivery of the ten-year childcare strategy may see women who have previously provided 'informal' care moving into the paid labour market and 'the state purchasing places on behalf of citizens from a range of providers'.
It added, 'This would mean the Government having greater influence over prices than it currently has, with possible implications for the level of surpluses and profits that are achieved. This may discourage the private sector and create space for social enterprise, where there is not the pressure to deliver profits for shareholders.'
The IPPR research was commissioned by Co-operatives UK and part-funded by Co-operative Action. They work with Co-operative Solutions and Social Enterprise London to back Co-operative Childcare, the support service for new and existing childcare businesses which want to adopt the co-operative way of working.
Co-operatives UK has identified around 80 co-operative childcare businesses currently running in the UK. But the IPPR report said there is 'a lack of robust data', partly because 'some social enterprises may not describe or recognise themselves as such'.
Angela Gibbons, childcare project co-ordinator at Co-Operatives UK, said that Sure Start, and growing numbers of early years partnerships and local education authorities, have expressed an interest in the co-operative model.
The IPPR report cited Sheffield Children's Centre as 'a large and well-established co-operative enterprise'. Set up 25 years ago, it was one of the first children's centres in Europe and is now one of the largest co-operatives in the UK, with 75 staff.
Chrissy Meleady, outgoing chair of the centre, said, 'It's been a successful model because it has allowed different stakeholders to come together. It's staff and community service user-led, so people are working collectively for the same goal.
'There is a multi-stakeholder committee of service users and workers who run the organisation. It is a sustainable model and allows for a range of flexibility. It also allows innovation and the creation of tailor-made services.'
The IPPR report said more research was needed to explore the relationship between parental involvement in childcare settings, early years governance structures and child outcomes. But it added, 'It is clear that social enterprise and co-operative social enterprise offers substantially greater oppor-tunities for parental involvement than other forms of education.'
The report noted that 17 per cent of children in Sweden are registered in private pre-schools, many of them parent co-operatives. But it pointed out that in both Sweden and Spain such co-operatives had experienced a 'motivational crisis', with parents losing interest and withdrawing.
The report said that given pressure on EYDCPs and Sure Start programmes to reduce and then remove the need for direct subsidies to childcare provision, social enterprises needed to 'broaden and diversify their revenue base if they are to be sustainable', attracting finance from other not-for-profit sources.
The charity 4Children has created a business toolkit and a voluntary management committee toolkit with training materials, and the IPPR has suggested the creation of a network of 'business mentors' to help social enterprises.
