Childcare? What Childcare?
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Cost of Childcare
They certainly hope she is right. The cost of childcare is one of the main barriers preventing parents - predominantly women - from getting back into the workplace, and denying employers a pool of talent they would like to tap into.
The Centre for Economics and Business Research has estimated that the UK is now the most expensive place in Europe to raise children. The average childcare bill for children between the ages of two and five is a whopping £25,000.
Yet, according to figures published exclusively in Personnel Today from voucher provider Accor Services, the vast majority of employers singularly fail to offer workers benefits such as childcare vouchers.
Its study of 113 HR professionals, carried out in March this year, found that while 96 per cent of firms had heard of the vouchers, just 18 per cent offered them to their employees. Of those organisations not currently offering vouchers, 30 per cent planned to do so in the future, and 41 per cent said they would be offering them from April 2005.
Despite the best efforts of Primarolo and chancellor Gordon Brown, only 58 per cent of companies were aware of the tax changes coming in, and just 3 per cent of the staff responsible for administering childcare voucher schemes personally used them.
