Unemployed lone parents are to be offered affordable childcare for up to 12 hours a day in a scheme designed to help them get back to work, work and pensions secretary Andrew Smith announced, writes Amy Taylor.
Smith said that the school-based childcare would be available from 7am to 7pm for 50 weeks of the year to give lone parents the chance to work.
The pilot scheme, which begins in April, will take place in Bradford and the London boroughs of Lewisham and Haringey - areas the government has identified as lacking in childcare. The Department for Work and Pensions is providing £4 million towards the scheme.
Smith also unveiled plans for pilot payments to give lone parents more money while they are job hunting. The work search premium will give lone parents, who have been on benefit for more than one year, £20 extra a week for up to six months if they agree to look for work. The in-work credit will pay lone parents, who get jobs of more than 16 hours a week, an extra £40 a week for the first year they are in work.
Both payments will start in October 2004 and will be piloted in eight areas - Bradford, Cardiff and Vale, Dudley and Sandwell, Lancashire west, Leicestershire, London south east, London west, and Edinburgh. In-work credit will be piloted separately in central London, Leeds, north London and Staffordshire.
