Childcare and Early Years Provision: Parents' Use, Views and Experiences, 2004

The introduction of the National Childcare Strategy in 1998 marked a radical shift in government policy and for the first time put childcare provision firmly on the political map. Since then a wide range of childcare initiatives and funding streams have been introduced, and hence there is a need for regular data to aid the evaluation of recent policy interventions in these areas. The <i>Childcare and Early Years Provision</i> survey series is divided into two survey strands: the Parents’ Survey and the Providers’ Survey. <br>
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The Parents’ Survey provides data on parents’ take-up, views and experiences of childcare. Families in England are randomly selected from the Child Benefit Records and all parents had children aged 0-14 years. They are asked about their use and experiences of childcare for all children in the family and to give more detailed information about childcare for a particular child (selected at random where there is more than one child in the family). The current Parents' Survey series replaces two previous surveys: the <i>Survey of Parents of Three and Four-Year-Old Children and Their Use of Early Years Services</i> (conducted between 1997 and 2002) and <i>Parents' Demand for Childcare, </i>conducted in 1999 and 2001 (see SNs 4380 and 4970 respectively).<br>
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The Providers' Survey monitors the characteristics and development of childcare and early years providers and the workforce in England. Information was collected on the number and characteristics of providers, the characteristics of the children enrolled, workforce composition, qualifications and training, recruitment and retention, and business operation. The 2016 survey underwent an extensive redesign, which means findings are not comparable with previous surveys.<br><br>The 2020 survey was
cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic<br>
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Further information is available on the GOV.UK <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-childcare-and-early-years" title="Childcare and Early Years Statistics" target="_blank">Childcare and Early Years Statistics</a> webpage.<br><br><div><span style="font-style: italic;">Special licence data</span></div><div>Additional, more detailed variables from the Providers' Survey in 2018, 2019 and 2021 are available under Special Licence (SL). The SL data have more restrictive access conditions than those made available under the standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement. Prospective users of the SL version will need to complete an extra application form and demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the additional variables in order to get permission to use that version. Users are advised to consult the EUL version first and the list of variables available under each study before applying.</div><div><br></div>
The current <i>Parents' Survey</i> series replaces two previous surveys: the <i>Survey of Parents of Three and Four Year Old Children and Their Use of Early Years Services</i> (conducted between 1997 and 2002) and the <i>Parents’ Demand for Childcare</i> (conducted in 1999 and 2001) (the latter series is held at the UKDA under GN 33341).<br>
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The <i> Childcare and Early Years Provision: Parents' Use, Views and Experiences, 2004</i> aims were to continue from the previous series, and to provide nationally representative, salient and up to date information on parents' use, views and experiences of childcare, upon which to base evaluations or recent policy interventions.<br>
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The survey series uses an inclusive definition of childcare and early years provision as parents were asked to include any time that their child was not with resident parents or at school. This included informal care provided by grandparents and ex-partners as well as formal care; and included times when parents were working and when they were not. Parents were asked their reasons for using childcare, enabling us to report on childcare used for economic reasons, and childcare used for the child's education.<br>
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Further information is available on the NatCen <a href="http://www.natcen.ac.uk/natcen/pages/or_familiesandchildren.htm#childcare_earlyyears" title ="Families and Children">Families and Children</a> web page.<br>

1998年《国家儿童保育战略》（National Childcare Strategy）的出台标志着英国政府政策的重大转向，首次将儿童保育服务正式纳入政治议程。自此以来，英国推出了一系列广泛的儿童保育举措与资金渠道，因此亟需定期收集数据以助力评估该领域近期的政策干预措施。

《儿童保育与早期教育服务》（Childcare and Early Years Provision）调查系列分为两个子调查板块：家长调查（Parents’ Survey）与服务机构调查（Providers’ Survey）。

家长调查旨在收集家长对儿童保育服务的参与情况、看法与体验数据。调查样本从英格兰地区的儿童福利金登记册（Child Benefit Records）中随机抽取，所有受访家长均育有0至14岁的子女。受访者需提供家庭中所有子女的保育使用情况与相关体验，并针对某一名特定子女（若家庭有多名子女，则随机选取一名）提供更详细的保育信息。当前的家长调查系列取代了两项过往调查：分别是1997年至2002年间开展的《三四岁儿童家长及其早期教育服务使用情况调查》（Survey of Parents of Three and Four-Year-Old Children and Their Use of Early Years Services），以及1999年与2001年开展的《家长儿童保育需求调查》（Parents' Demand for Childcare）（对应编号分别为SN 4380与SN 4970）。

服务机构调查用于监测英格兰地区儿童保育与早期教育服务机构及从业人员队伍的特征与发展态势。调查收集的信息涵盖服务机构的数量与特征、在册儿童的特征、从业人员构成、资质与培训情况、招聘与留存情况，以及机构运营状况。2016年的调查进行了大规模的重新设计，因此其调查结果无法与过往调查进行横向对比。2020年的调查因新冠（COVID-19）疫情取消。

更多详细信息可访问GOV.UK平台的《儿童保育与早期教育统计》（Childcare and Early Years Statistics）网页。

**特殊许可数据**
2018、2019及2021年服务机构调查的额外详细变量可通过特殊许可（Special Licence，SL）获取。特殊许可数据的访问限制条件严于标准最终用户许可协议（End User Licence，EUL）。申请使用特殊许可版本的用户需填写额外的申请表，并向数据所有者明确说明其需要访问额外变量的具体原因，以获得使用该版本的许可。建议用户在申请前先查阅标准最终用户许可版本，以及各研究可获取的变量清单。

当前的家长调查系列取代了两项过往调查：《三四岁儿童家长及其早期教育服务使用情况调查》（1997年至2002年开展）与《家长儿童保育需求调查》（1999年与2001年开展，后者数据集由英国数据档案库（UK Data Archive，UKDA）以GN 33341编号存档）。

《2004年儿童保育与早期教育服务：家长使用情况、看法与体验》的调查目标是延续过往系列的研究脉络，提供具有全国代表性、兼具重要性与时效性的家长保育使用情况、看法与体验数据，为近期政策干预的评估提供依据。

本调查系列对儿童保育与早期教育服务采用包容性定义：受访者需涵盖子女未与亲生父母共同居住或未在校就读的所有时段，这既包括祖父母、前伴侣提供的非正式保育，也包括正式保育；既涵盖家长工作时段的保育需求，也涵盖非工作时段的保育需求。调查还询问了家长使用保育服务的原因，据此可统计因经济原因使用的保育服务，以及为子女教育需求提供的保育服务。

更多详细信息可访问NatCen的《家庭与儿童》（Families and Children）网页。