By Louisa Mitchell, Catherine Hakim, Karen Bradley, Emily Price

Childcare requirements are most intensive during the first three years of a child’s life and these years are the focus of this report. Little Britons assesses research on parental preferences and reviews how state childcare is currently funded, how it supports individual families and its impact on the private and voluntary sectors. The report establishes that present arrangements, although a great improvement on the past, are not flexible enough to meet the needs of today’s varied family structures and working hours.