You are here: News Families award Government a ‘C’ grade for being family friendly, with squeeze on budgets holding back top marks
New research by the Family and Childcare Trust and Netmums has shown that families would award the Government a grade ‘C’ for being family friendly based on key factors that impact on family life.
According to more than 2,500 parents across the UK, financial pressures are having the largest impact on quality of life, with government receiving an average D+ for its efforts to support family budgets. Local public services fared much better, receiving a B- score overall.
The research forms part of the Family and Childcare Trust’s annual Report Card, currently the only annual assessment of how family friendly the UK is. It analyses national data across four areas: financial resources, work-life balance, essential services for families and children, and family friendly infrastructure such as housing and childcare.
Parents also told us what the government and employers could do to make the UK more family friendly. The most popular suggestion was reducing the cost of childcare, closely followed by provision of more after school clubs. Access to flexible work, facilities for disabled children and ensuring a living wage were also in the top ten.
Anand Shukla, Chief Executive, Family and Childcare Trust said:
“In the last year the Government has taken positive steps to support families, and it should be applauded for extending support for childcare, the pupil premium and free school meals. “But the ‘C’ grade shows that it could do better. Incomes of some of the poorest families in the country have fallen. Too many parents still struggle with low pay and rising costs. Balancing work and family life in a way that suits their families is still an unattainable dream for most parents and childcare costs remain a major barrier to work. The Government needs to do more to address child poverty and living standards.”
Julia McGinley, Director of Parent Support at the UK's main parenting site Netmums said:
“Thousands of parents discuss these issues on Netmums every day as they are crucial to every family. “Family friendly working practices, affordable childcare, decent housing and transport are not just nice to have; they are fundamental to the quality of family life in the UK. It's clear much more needs to be done by politicians to ensure policies are designed to help ease the pressure on already hard-stretched families.”
The Report Card is published to coincide with Family Friendly Week (w/c 20 October).
Contact: Mark Bou Mansour, Communications and Campaigns Manager. Telephone: 0207 940 7535, mobile: 07538 334 772, email: mark@familyandchildcaretrust.org.
Notes to Editor
Report Card methodology
The Family and Childcare Trust drew on its own analysis of government policy and official statistics. To ensure our insights reflect the real experiences of families, we also undertook an online survey of 2,552 parents through Netmums. This was broadly representative of parents in the UK and asked their opinions on areas such as childcare and housing. We also asked parents to grade the Government on its effort to support families in each of the four areas we examined (financial resources, work-life balance, essential services for families and children, and family friendly infrastructure such as housing and childcare).They were given the option of choosing between an A grade (the best) and F. We calculated average grades for each area and an overall average.
Other key findings from the research show:
- 72 per cent of parents said that their mortgage or rent was the main financial pressure on the family, with food and household bills coming second
- In 23 per cent of families, childcare came first or second as their largest item of expenditure.
- 22 per cent of parents struggled with the cost of school day trips that are part of the curriculum.
- 15 per cent of parents struggled with the cost of school uniform and 11 per cent struggled with buying books and materials for school.
We asked parents for their ideas to make Britain more family friendly. We had over 1,000 ideas from parents, covering many different policy areas. The top ten suggestions were:
- Dealing with the high cost of childcare
- Providing more after-school club
- Ensuring more affordable extra-curricular activities for children
- Enabling all parents to have access to family-friendly and flexible work
- Dealing with high housing costs
- Providing better public transport
- Better facilities for disabled children
- Cleaner and more child-friendly parks
- Introducing the Living Wage
- Better childcare for parents who work shifts
About the Family and Childcare Trust
The Family and Childcare Trust aims to make the UK a better place for families. We are a leading national family charity in the field of policy, research and advocacy on childcare and family issues, with over 40 years’ experience. Our on-the-ground work with parents and providers informs our research and campaigns. We focus on the early years and childcare because they are crucial to boosting children’s outcomes throughout life and supporting parents to work.
About Netmums
Netmums.com is Britain’s biggest parenting site, with over 1.7 million members and 7 million unique users each month. Founded in 2000, it offers unrivalled support though a unique network of 151 established and vibrant local websites and 300 national groups for mums to meet offline, alongside 2,300 parent bloggers covering the most topical family-focused content on the web. Netmums is also the only parenting site to provide professional round the clock care to its users. Dubbed 'the emergency service for mums', each year over three and a half million parents are helped by Netmums specially trained teams of parenting supporters, including staff from Relate, Women’s Aid and the Family Rights Group. The site also provides free one-to-one support for more than 30,000 of the UK’s most vulnerable mums each year. The three Netmums founders were recently awarded OBEs in recognition of their Services to Families.