First, there is an assumption that the care being provided is automatically good and therefore should be recognised. Grandparents, other relatives, friends and neighbours may be available to care for children for a whole host of reasons, such as being unemployed or retired - but none being that they would actually have chosen childcare as a profession.
Second, such a call supports the outdated belief that childcare is something anyone can deliver and does not require trained skills.
PANN would like this report, Informal care: Bridging the gap for families, to have looked more closely at why parents use 'informal' care and the need to bring some of that informal care into the 'formal' care sector.
In particular, PANN believes strongly that nannies must be given formal status. Many employers opt to employ nannies not simply because of the flexibility in hours they can offer, but because many of them are trained and qualified to a very high standard. Nannies are especially affordable where a family has more than one child, and especiallly convenient when parents work long and irregular shift patterns.
It is a great frustration to us that nannies, who often work between 40 and 50 hours per week, have written contracts of employment, and are paid a salary with deductions for tax and national insurance taken out, are still considered as 'informal' childcare providers. Parents choosing to employ nannies make such a decision with great care and consideration, and none would consider the employment to be an 'informal' arrangement.
This report is welcome in that it raises the issue of 'informal' care. But it is incomplete when it fails to address why the figures for 'informal'
care use is so high and what percentage of that care should be recognised as 'formal' and not 'informal', thus distorting the figures.
We are fearful that in order to deliver the high numbers of childcarers needed, the Government will lower the standards required to work in childcare, give recognition to anyone and everyone, and further disillusion an already disillusioned workforce.
Tricia Pritchard
Professional officer, Professional Association of Nursery Nurses
