Despite the expansion of formal childcare over the past 15 years, Daycare Trust's latest research has revealed that childcare delivered by family, friends and neighbours is as crucial to parents as ever, with seven million adults in the UK - 14 per cent of the population - regularly providing childcare.
Daycare Trust has been awarded money from the Big Lottery Fund to conduct a two-year study, 'Informal Childcare: 
Choice or Chance?' which seeks to map the use of informal childcare in the UK, examining why parents choose this kind of childcare, and the resulting impact of these arrangements. By 'informal childcare' we mean childcare which is unregulated.
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