Summary
High quality holiday childcare is essential for both families and the economy: as well as enabling parents to work, it gives children the opportunity to take part in positive activities that they might not otherwise access. About twice as many children use school age childcare as nurseries – about 3 million per year, yet holiday childcare for school-aged children is often overlooked when we talk about childcare policy. This is despite its importance to parents, children and to the economy. For parents and carers, finding childcare during the holidays can be particularly challenging. The price is normally significantly higher than term time childcare, which can throw off carefully managed budgets. There are also substantial gaps in availability, meaning many parents will find it difficult to find childcare that covers their working patterns and suits their children’s needs. Where holiday childcare is unavailable or too expensive, parents are left with few options. Many cannot call on family and friends to provide all the informal childcare they need, and will not have enough annual leave to cover the long break, and some struggle to stay in work. The Holiday Childcare Survey 2018, our seventeenth annual survey, once again finds that problems around availability and affordability of holiday childcare persist.