How do we better understand supply and demand of school age childcare in communities?

Our challenge is data-focussed, relating to a high profile new commitment for this parliamentary term to design and build an accessible, affordable and flexible system of school age childcare provision in Scotland. In order to design a system that works for most people we need to understand what children’s and parent’s needs are in relation to childcare (as well as access to activities). We also need to understand the school age childcare landscape better: What’s currently happening? What are children doing round about the school day? How much of this is related to childcare needs and how dependent is this on the range of resources available within a community? How are choices limited by cost, location or accessibility challenges? Data is central to this challenge because of the complexities of different families’ needs, and the range of different possible providers, but a snap shot in time of data will not solve this challenge alone. To help us to design a sustainable policy approach in this area we want a solution which helps us to understand both the national picture and what school age childcare needs are at a community level, and on an ongoing basis. We would like to explore solutions which can build on the baseline of understanding we already have, and then both inform our future policy approach and ultimately help us design a system in which local providers understand demand in the communities they serve, and families can access local school age childcare which meets their needs. Please visit our website for information on CivTech and how to get involved https://www.civtechalliance.org/civtech-6-how-to-apply