A Bright Start: Improving childcare for disadvantaged families through Universal Credit

Support for childcare costs is different in each nation of the UK, resulting in a complex mix of reserved and devolved policies – evidence and data sources on children’s early learning, childcare needs, provision and usage also vary in each nation. This report focuses on evidence and recommendations on the needs of families in England, but necessarily makes proposals for reserved policies, which would also impact on families in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We believe that these proposals would provide welcome additional support for families in every country of the UK, but would interact with existing devolved childcare and early education policies in different ways in each country.

Families in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will have other needs around childcare costs which interact with existing devolved policies. The analysis in this report does not draw these out and further research would be required to look at the needs of families in the other countries of the UK, and to develop tailored reform packages that meet specific needs in each country