Parents of pre-school children should be given £8,000 a year to stay at home to look after their kids, a think tank has suggested. Researchers at think tank, Civitas, are set to urge the government to make such childcare allowance available to support stay-at-home mothers, as Essex Live reports.
This comes after Department of Education officials reportedly had "intense conversations'' over how to improve childcare across the country and make it more affordable. The recommendation from Civitas, the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, involves bundling the existing child benefit and childcare grants into a single 'family support benefit'.
Under that model, parents of children under four years old will be provided with up to £8,000 a year. The money could then be spent on external childcare, paying a relative to look after the kids or supporting parents staying at home to do so themselves.
