When I started working with children many many years ago, I never envisaged talking about children and the economy in the same breath. These days, I never give it a second thought.

As part of their broader London childcare project, the Daycare Trust provides an annual review of the capital’s providers; and while no one review can ever be perfect, it does capture a fair snapshot of the sector’s current state of play.

Of course, there’s no doubting London is an expensive place to live, work and do business – with its own peculiar issues that are not always easy to generalize.  Our great capital is made up of a series of villages woven together by the larger global village, and the challenge is making these two dynamics work in a way that allows for successful local economies and an overall successful city.

The survey represents 803 provider settings in London, providing a minimum of 15,275 full-time equivalent places across the private, voluntary and independent sectors (with the private sector providing the most places). So what did the sector say? Well unsurprisingly, the biggest worry is staying in business.

• 52% said they were fearful that parents cannot afford the fees
• 47% said they were hit by local authority cuts
• 33% are still worried about the level of free entitlement funding for 3 & 4 year-olds
• 31% are concerned about staff recruitment, pay and retention
• 29% are worried about falling occupancy rates

In all, the sector is worried. But really, it’s the politicians that should be more worried. The economy first of all needs people to work, so they can earn a living and then spend it, helping to flow money through the economy and create new wealth. Having good, affordable childcare is a critical element in helping to make this happen.  Women have been hit particularly hard in this recession, so we need to do all we can to ensure they can work (especially as so many families depend on their vital contribution; the days of pin money are long gone and in many cases women are now the main breadwinners).

And why should we prevent women – who have studied and trained, and then built up a career – from working and making such a valuable contribution? We know the negative effects poverty has on children, families and society. Back in March, we complained that the Budget had done nothing to help parents with the spiralling cost of childcare, that George Osborne had missed a real opportunity to return the childcare element to its previous level and so help parents remain in sustainable employment.

So the sector has now asked the Mayor to step in, and step up to this economic challenge.  We want to see his true colours; and if he can show his central Government colleagues a thing or two about how to lead.  We know he can stick his neck out when things matter to him: he is keen on an estuary airport; he got very excited by Anish Kapoor’s embattled Orbit, the 120 metre public art sculpture at the Olympic Village; and he went head to head with Mr. Cameron on the Euro.

So Mr. Boris Mayor, please shake those famous tousled locks of yours and start with the following:

• Lobby the Government to bring maximum childcare tax credits for low income families back to 80% [HMRC Child and Working Tax Credit Statistics April 2011]
• Promote family friendly practice and childcare vouchers amongst all London employers
• Include the Early Years in your current education inquiry

In his own words:

The strength of a city lies in its people – from the famous, the infamous to the heroically obscure. From an earlier Mayor of London, Dick Whittington to the tireless volunteers working to turn around London’s next generation. All whose endeavours have built the place we call home, I salute.

Boris Johnson.

Now do something that will help build a London fit for the next generation. Take an interest in childcare.

Clearly everyone thinks parents have lost the ability to parent, but don’t worry – the Government which so despises the nanny state is rushing to save parents everywhere:

Parents are nation-builders. It’s through love and sheer hard work that we raise the next generation with the right values. That’s why this Government is doing everything possible to support parents.

We’re doing the big, long-term things to make this country stronger for our children – dealing with our debts; having a massive push for better schools; working to create more good, skilled jobs in our economy.

But we’re also focussed on making life easier for parents day-to-day, from extending childcare to increasing the number of health visitors. The parenting classes and films we’re launching this week are an important part of that, providing clear, professionally-led advice on everything from teething to tantrums.”

Prime Minister David Cameron

According to the Government’s Parental Opinion Survey (2010), 85 per cent of parents want more practical help caring for their baby, to provide the best possible start for their children. So, like any good Government, we now have a brand new digital service for parents-to-be and new parents, providing regular emails and texts with timely information as their pregnancy develops and their child grows; free parenting classes to all parents of children aged five years and under in three trial areas, as well as expert organisations to deliver relationship support for first time parents in four trial areas of the country from this summer.

I agree with this in principle, since being a parent is one of the most difficult jobs – unless of course you have been blessed with quiet, acquiescent and compliant children. (I have worked with children for 30 years and haven’t met too many of those.)

Either way, parents are nearly always on the back foot; you just crack a particular habit your child has acquired or a particular obsession, and by the time your techniques have begun to take hold and you are beginning to find a solution that works, they have moved onto the next stage and challenge. My eldest son would only eat if I put him in the pushchair, and then would eat only about ten different foods.  I was at my wits end, trying every ploy, and just as I thought I had got his mealtimes down to a fine art, he changed and was off on something else. I thought that I would be better second and third time around, but not a bit of it; all the habits I had cracked with son number one never materialized with son number two.  He brought a new set of challenges – especially about where he would sleep and how he coped with parting. My daughter then arrived with yet another set of challenges which required a completely different psychology, and although the most amenable and delightful young child, she turned adolescence into a story that could be the basis of a Palme D’Or winning foreign movie.

I like the idea of the parenting vouchers, only I wish what these paid for weren’t called parenting classes.  I think it will put people off, since whilst there’s no denying how hard it is to get parenting right, most people still somehow manage to struggle through and successfully produce the next generation. Putting your hand up to ask for help is very brave, and there may not be enough hands in the air to make the shift from parenting classes as a support to parenting classes as the norm.

The government naturally wants to support strong and stable families, and research clearly shows that the birth of a new child can be a major stress point for couples. Few would disagree, and I suspect more new parents feel able to ask for help at this point than at any other in the long and often bumpy road that is parenthood. And there is of course a collective sympathy from all parents who remember the panic, fear and terror of coping with a tiny mite, compounded only more so by a diet of exhaustion from sleepless nights.

I can therefore only hope that the vouchers, available from Boots, will  help the Government begin a wider conversation which publicly affirms the contribution of all parents to a successful society. Let this approach be as normal as collecting free vitamin drops. But what will it take to get the backing of our wider society to help frame the UK view about what we think needs to be done, and how we must behave as models for our children?

There’s surely been no better time to start thinking about codes of behaviour and expectations; about the rights and needs children have to grow, learn and succeed in a world with clear parameters of good manners, mutual respect, civic duty and humility; a sort of UK take on the Ubuntu philosophy (often referred in simple terms as the ‘essence of being human’). The Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee explained Ubuntu as “I am what I am because of who we all are”, whilst the people of Botswana define it as a process for earning respect by first giving it, or gaining empowerment by empowering others. Either way, it encourages people to applaud rather than resent those who succeed, whilst disapproving of anti-social, disgraceful, inhuman and criminal behaviour, and so encourages social justice for all.

So let’s hope this new Government initiative provokes the start of a philosophical conversation about how we create the right environment to rear our children, and what we all need to do to make this collective parenting approach one that works for generations to come.

London has a new Mayor – or a recycled one, depending on your point of view. Boris cycled back into office with a much reduced majority, so he needs to seriously consider the voice of Londoners if he is to maintain a sense of engagement and keep us on side.  The downfall of Mark Antony was that he stopped listening to the voices of the Romans and got a bit carried away with Cleopatra; let’s hope Boris continues to listen to the voices of Londoners, especially those of all women – and even more so those with children.  I hope the  plan for a ‘Bright Start for every child’ will take his interest and we see him standing more  publicly on matters that affect small children.

London Councils has also published a plan, Governing London Towards 2016 setting out how the Mayor and local councils can be a strong united voice, speaking up for London to secure fair funding for the capital and champion the city’s needs. London Councils’ plan highlights where the Mayor can work more closely with councils on issues such as crime, education, housing, health and the environment. For example:

• Support London Councils’ campaign to increase school places in many parts of the capital where demand is growing;
• Work with councils on effective interventions to reduce reoffending;
• Support the campaign to remove unnecessary limits on council borrowing to build more affordable homes for Londoners.

Here is a thought then Boris: maybe you could leave four year olds in nursery until they are five, giving you a little much-needed breathing room while you and the London Councils plan how to manage the increasing shortage of school places.

Another Roman who came into my head this week was Caesar, as I wondered if David Cameron was fiddling while the Eurozone burned and we  tipped back into recession. I know LEYF is a small business in the grand economic scheme of things but the state of the economy does affect us. Our customers are predominately mothers, and when one in five women are losing their jobs in London, this naturally has a big impact on us; less nurseries means less income, which in turn means we have less potential for social impact .

On a more positive note, we continue to look forward to the Olympics across our 23 LEYF community nurseries. Still, plans for fun and games with staff and children run alongside those for contingency measures, as we do all we can to ensure London’s great event in no way threatens delivery of our high quality service for parents across the capital. And whilst I know some people think I am being unduly pessimistic about the traffic gridlock the Olympics will bring, I felt completed mitigated in my anxiety on Wednesday, when the State Opening of Parliament brought roads around our Central Office to a complete standstill. As I began my journey back to Marsham Street for a midday meeting, not one taxi moved on Piccadilly.  I spent £10 in one cab, before climbing out after barely half a mile.  Had I not been wearing high heels, I might have hot-footed it across Green Park.  However, the prospect of blisters kept me there, and the meeting was cancelled.  Luckily, colleagues from the south were stranded on their side of the river and so abandoned their journey too. So I rest my case about transport gridlock, and continue to urge all nurseries to get their Olympic contingency plans firmed up ASAP!

On a final note this week, the Children and Families Bill was outlined in the Queen’s Speech, covering a broad range of policy areas. Much of this builds on previous announcements made by Nick Clegg on parental leave, and in the Family Justice Review and the SEN Green Paper. Overall, the bill will look to:

• Strengthen the role of Children’s Commissioner
• Make parental leave more flexible
• Improve service provision for children with SEN and disabilities
• Reform the court process relating to looked after children

The exact detail of the bill is yet to be agreed, yet already I am finding it hard to see any attention paid to small children in the SEN changes.  This will be critical as we roll out the Two Year Old Offer, not least as we try to get speedy assessment and family support for the youngest children with SEN. I am also worried about how the sector will manage parental leave. Will it provide us with more staff cost at a time we can least afford it? Am I right to worry – or should I look to the words of another Roman…

I often regret that I have spoken; never that I have been silent.

Publilius Syrus (Roman author, 1st century B.C.)

As always, please add your thoughts or experiences in relation to all or any of the above in the box below – and let’s keep the conversation going!

Two ever-popular and increasingly connected topics of debate, child poverty and social mobility have been high on my own agenda this week. Starting on Monday with a lunchtime debate hosted by Policy Exchange, entitled Towards a Better Child Poverty Target. Here an eminent panel of five, including Frank Field MP argued that the targets set to reduce child poverty were unhelpful.  Kicking off the debate, Frank provoked the audience with real life examples of child poverty, and a heartfelt plea in support of all those children who are subject to the casual cruelty of ignorant adults.  He concluded by asking Mr Cameron to read his report. (Leaving me to wonder how he knew the Prime Minister had not already done so.)

Next up was a representative of the End Child Poverty Campaign, arguing that we should have targets, not only since poverty damages children’s life chances, but since lower income equates with poor educational attainment which in turn leads to poverty. The Director of the Policy Exchange then suggested the measurement of 60% of the median income was somewhat arbitrary and needed to include relative poverty.  He challenged how measurements can be deceiving, and statistically getting someone out of poverty may still leave them poor.  He challenged the audience by saying that we did not really understand what caused poverty.  For example we always assume that unemployment leads to poverty, whilst research from the Institute of Fiscal Studies was unable to link higher employment with a reduction in poverty. Much was made about poverty of the ‘in work’ population (something we often see at LEYF), itself mitigated to some degree by Child Tax Credits; although now a situation clearly challenged by the Chancellor’s budget decision to reduce access to tax credits.

The editor of the Spectator, Fraser Nelson told us that poverty was not sexy and it certainly did not sell newspapers. Apparently, the public simply don’t get the notion of poverty.  They don’t see people starving and so are unable to understand the issue; it is in effect a hidden problem. And it seemed no-one had a solution that might change this.

Finally, the debate began to focus on Early Years and the importance of early intervention. Reference was made to the negative impact of maternal deprivation, along with persistent and severe poverty on children’s development and their resulting low attainment, which in turn leads to lower levels of lifetime success.

The same subject was also raised on Tuesday by the APPG on social mobility, whose report looks at the causes of social mobility and what that means for policy makers. Called 7 Key Truths about Social Mobility, this must-read report tells us that in fact we don’t yet fully understand social mobility. It points out that to have true social mobility, some people have to go up and others go down, and goes on to say that social mobility is stuck in the UK; apparently those of us in my age bracket (guess) have seen greater social mobility than our children.  It may be that education is the factor differentiating us from our parents, and so is the most effective lever.  Nowadays it seems less effective, as so many young people already have a more equitable start.  Either way, the seven truths they found were:

1. The point of greatest leverage for social mobility is what happens between the ages of 0 and 3, and primarily in the home
2. You can break the cycle through education
3. The most important controllable factor is the quality of your teaching
4. It’s also about what happens after the school bell rings
5. University is the top determinant of later opportunities – so pre-18 attainment is key
6. Later pathways to mobility are possible, given the will and support
7. Personal resilience and emotional wellbeing are the missing link in the chain

Unsurprisingly, none of this is new to me (or I’m sure most of the readers of this blog). In fact, it’s this very understanding that drove me into the arms of cultural capital research which now permeates much of what we do at LEYF, from both an economic and social perspective. It’s summed up in this equally relevant interim report on Sure Start delivery in 2011/12, produced by the APPG for SureStart. It states that

All those involved in providing early education and childcare services should encourage a broad social mix of children to attend high quality childcare services. They should address any barriers that may hinder participation by vulnerable children, such as geographical access, the cost of transport or a sense of discrimination and stigma.

It immediately brings to mind a recent example of cultural capital at work in our Holcroft Community Nursery. In this case, two children were on a holiday placement having recently left for school. Chatting away happily – and blissfully ignoring the adults seated nearby who only tuned in ‘mid flow’ – the conversation went something like this…

Child #1:  “Key Managers?? Yes, Sherrine is my Key Manager.”

Child #2:  “What does Key Manager mean?”

Child #1:  “It’s your friend to tell you what to do, make sure you’re OK. Like the leader they are always the oldest.”

Child #2:  “Oh, OK.”

I could draw a number of conclusions from this, but the most powerful for me was the sense of connection and confidence those children had about how things work.  Cultural capital is the means of firstly helping children gain knowledge and then continue to develop and create it by understanding the system, before sharing this knowledge and making new connections. This is what helps children get on, and it’s when children struggle to understand the system that they are truly disadvantaged.