Nursery World - Workplace nurseries boosted

The Government has earmarked 16m in capital grants over the next two years to help small- and medium-sized businesses to develop workplace childcare facilities. It plans to consult business groups on how best to allocate the funds - 8m in 2006-07 and again in 2007-08 - which were promised in last week's Budget.

It plans to consult business groups on how best to allocate the funds - Pounds 8m in 2006-07 and again in 2007-08 - which were promised in last week's Budget.

Susan Hay, chair of Bright Horizons Family Solutions, a nursery chain that works closely with employers, welcomed the capital grants as 'real supply- side funding'. She said that workplace nurseries were supported by employers because they had some control over the quality of provision while employees benefited from their flexibility.

But she said smaller businesses might need a relatively small number of childcare places. 'Either we have to make smaller nurseries work in an economic way or look at ways of combining employers in consortia to create workplace nurseries,' she added.

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