Employment Service (Hansard, 12 March 1999)

§ Mr. Andrew Smith

Responsibility for the subject of the question has been delegated to the Employment Service agency under its Chief Executive. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

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Letter from Leigh Lewis to Mr. Jim Fitzpatrick, dated 12 March 1999: As the Employment Service is an Executive Agency, the Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your questions concerning the Employment Service's position on Family Friendly and Childcare Policies. This is something which falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of the Agency. I wrote to all staff in the Employment Service in January of this year restating the Employment Service Board's commitment to equality of opportunity. This week, we have also issued a document entitled "Childcare Provision and Family Friendly Policy, A Statement to Staff in DfEE and ES from the Secretary of State, the DfEE Board and the ES Chief Executive", a copy of which has been placed in the Library of the House. The Employment Service has a wide range of policies available, all of which apply nationally, to support staff with family commitments and our intention is that these should be used to the full. The majority of Employment Service staff already work flexible hours, and 21% work part time. Of these, we estimate that around 40 work formal term time hours. Significantly more take advantage of our special leave arrangements to cover school holiday periods. With regard to playschemes, in 1998 the Employment Service had 650 playscheme places in 22 locations. No new playschemes were opened in the last twelve months, but our intention is to encourage such schemes wherever they are viable and cost effective. We are also working closely with the Benefits Agency to establish where we can make joint provision available. The Employment Service does not have a separate national budget for childcare. Overall budgets are allocated to our Regional Directors, and to the ES Directors for Scotland and Wales, who have authority individually to assess and where appropriate fund childcare facilities in individual locations. I hope this is helpful.

Childcare Provision and Family Friendly Policy Statement to Staff in DfEE and ES From the Secretary of State, the DfEE Board and the ES Chief Executive

We are writing to let you know what is happening on childcare and family friendly policies in DfEE and ES and to emphasise our commitment to continue to make progress in this area.

DfEE is responsible for developing the National Childcare Strategy and for promoting good practice in family friendly employment. DfEE and ES must lead the way to help our own staff balance their work and home lives and to encourage other employers to do the same. We want to keep our skilled and talented people, supporting them to remain in, or return to, work.

DfEE and ES already have an extensive range of childcare and family friendly provision which includes:

Subsidised nurseries and holiday playschemes in some locations.
Maternity leave on 16 weeks full pay for permanent staff with 1 years service.
Paid paternity leave for 5 days.
Adoptive leave for 52 weeks including 20 days at full pay.
Payment for additional childcare costs where people have to work longer than their normal hours, for example to attend a training course.
Discretion for managers to agree special paid and unpaid leave.
Career breaks for women and men.
Provision for part-time working—10% of DfEE and 21% of ES staff currently work part-time.
A wide variety of flexible working patterns including job share, homeworking, part year or term time working and compressed hours working.

But we want to do more. In recent months, DfEE and ES have taken a number of steps to move the childcare and family friendly strategy forward.

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DfEE has:

carried out a benchmarking exercise to determine what leading major employers are doing and measured ourselves against them. We will be publishing a summary of the results within the next few months:

undertaken a Carers' Survey to get views about a range of childcare and family friendly issues. We are now taking this a step further and will very shortly be carrying out a needs analysis on each site;
carried our research into eligibility criteria of childcare voucher schemes and prepared illustrative costings to help us decide whether vouchers are a feasible option;
called together a cross-Whitehall Departmental Working Group to determine how an affordable and targeted childcare voucher scheme might work;
agreed to extend payment for additional childcare costs to wider caring responsibilities;
issued guidance for all staff on family friendly policies and flexible working patterns.

ES has:

set out its intentions to be a leader in the field of equal opportunities in a letter to all staff from the Chief Executive;
issued booklets on setting up a nursery and a playscheme;
developed options on childcare for consideration by the ES Board;
set up an Action Group to consider issues on part-time and family friendly policies, sponsored by a member of the ES Board;
prepared a leaflet for all staff outlining current family friendly policy provision to be issued in the next few weeks;
surveyed, in one region, the specific childcare needs of staff.

We will continue this work. DfEE is currently investigating local nursery and playscheme partnerships which we could join. ES is exploring the use of local partnerships with the Benefits Agency to provide additional childcare places. Both DfEE and ES are looking to see how we can use our family friendly policies to the full. We also need to publicise them more effectively. Management and trade unions are working together on these issues. DfEE and ES will continue to share knowledge and good practice. Our managers have a critical role in developing the Department as a family friendly employer. We look to them to play their part too. If you are interested in further information on any of the above issues, you can contact: Sheila Wigley, DfEE, Equal Opportunities Unit, 01928 4322, GTN 4197 (4)4322. Sue Locke, ES Equal Opportunities Team, 0114 259 7620, GTN 5301 (2)7620. or Your ES Regional Personnel Section.