UK childcare bills 'Europe's highest' at £128 a week

The typicalcost of a nursery place for a child under two has risen to £128 a week, an increase of almost 7 per cent in a year, a survey suggests.

The rising cost is putting pressure on working parents and threatens the Government's childcare strategy, the charity Daycare Trust says.

Its survey found that in some parts of the UK, particularly London and the South- east, the cost of a nursery place was higher – typically £168 a week. The most expensive was £300 a week.

The typical cost of a full-time place with a childminder for a child under two was £118 a week, while the typical cost for an after-school club was £34 for 15 hours a week.

The charity is calling on ministers and employers to provide more help for parents towards the cost of child care. Stephen Burke, director of Daycare Trust, said: "British parents face the highest childcare bills in Europe.

"Parents need more financial help towards childcare costs to enable them to work and to give their children a good start in life. The Government should improve the childcare tax credit and do more to encourage employers to help their staff with childcare costs. Affordable child care for all is crucial to achieving many of the Government's policies – from ending child poverty to raising educational attainment."

There is one childcare place for every seven children under eight and, with growing numbers of women with young children in the workplace, demand for child care is outstripping supply.

Daycare Trust says working families on lower incomes who receive help towards child care through the childcare tax credit still have to find at least 30 per cent of the cost of child care and most have to pay well over twice that. The average award through the childcare tax credit of £40.61 a week was less than a third of the typical cost of a nursery place.

The high cost of child care in Britain is the main reason only 13 per cent of parents with dependent children use childcare services all the time.

However, the "vast majority of workless families" get no help at all with child care, according to the charity. It said three million children lived in families where there was no working adult, but only 20,000 children received child care paid for by their local authority.

The price of a nursery place has risen by more than 16 per cent in two years, from an average of £110 in 2001, when the trust carried out its first survey.

Megan Pacey, the trust's policy officer, said: "It is a matter of supply and demand. There is a gross shortage of childcare places. Most nurseries are privately run and it is difficult to make money out of child care. In Europe there is more state-subsidised care and parents pay no more than 30 per cent of the cost compared to the 75 per cent that most parents in Britain pay."

The Government launched its childcare strategy in 1998 to get mothers off benefit and back to work, tackle child poverty and promote equality at work.