Take this fact: the average cost of a full-time nursery place for a child is 7,300 a year. Take another fact: the average salary of a full-time childcare worker is said to be 6,100. Add seasoning, and the mixture is a mess.
No statistics offer a more poignant portrait of the childcare industry.
Although it has been blessed by Government investment and goodwill, the childcare scene is precarious. No one knows that better than the providers who have gone to the wall since 1997.
Although 623,000 new childcare places were created between 1997 and 2003, a staggering 301,000 places were also lost. The crazed reaction to the recent evaluation of Sure Start could actually make childcare provision even more unstable.
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