"I can find the job, I can get the job - but I've got no childcare for (son) the older one" - Lone mother taking part in Daycare Trust focus group, Birmingham.

With MPs, policy-makers and lone parents themselves citing a lack of childcare for older children as a barrier to getting into work and out of poverty, Daycare Trust is hoping that filling this gap will be top of the agenda for the Government's new Child Poverty Unit. Speaking on the day the Unit was being launched, and as the government's consultation on the welfare reform green paper, "In Work, Better Off" comes to an end, Joint-Chief Executive Emma Knights said:

"The new unit will mean departments across local and central government working together in a joined-up assault on child poverty. This will be an ideal opportunity to tackle some of the real gaps in policy that are undermining the goal of halving child poverty by 2010, something which, as members of the End Child Poverty Campaign, we whole-heartedly support."

"One of the most glaring gaps is one of timing, between the Department for Work and Pensions' target date of 2008 for requiring lone parents of children over 11 to work, and the Department for Children, Schools and Families' target of 2010 for providing the universal, out-of-school childcare that these parents will rely on."

"What are lone parents in the two-thirds of the country that will not have this provision next year to do? Until there is a guarantee of suitable, affordable childcare for every parent who needs it, lone parents should not be required to work," she added.

"We are glad that Peter Hain, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, recognises that affordable, high-quality childcare is key to the success of the welfare reform proposals, and his assurance that they will not entail a forced regime where, regardless of circumstances, you have to work, but will take into consideration factors such as childcare facilities."

The gap between finding a job and being able to balance it with looking after their children properly is one which lone parents have highlighted in research conducted by Daycare Trust as part of its Listening to Families project. It highlighted the very real difficulties lone parents face in getting into work.

One parent said: "If it was that difficult just to organise the work-focused interview alone, how did she expect me to organise interviews for getting jobs, getting into work and everything else that goes with it? ...She couldn't understand and you find it's very difficult for people to listen to you - they've got this slot and that slot free and they want you in as much as possible. None of those free appointment times fit in with your child at school."

The research, published in a report, Listening to lone parents about childcare, found that lone parents wanted to work, but were particularly anxious not to leave their young secondary-school-age children to fend for themselves after school. And another recently-published report, Childcare nation?, which draws on the government's own research, quotes a quarter of non-working lone parents as saying that they were not working because of a lack of suitable childcare. Despite a significant increase in out-of-school clubs, from 4,905 in 2001 to 7,656 in 2006 (representing 260,100 places), still only 6 percent of 12-14-year-olds used them.

One parent said: "At the age of 11 you can't leave them. You shouldn't really be leaving them until they're 14. So what am I supposed to do? Do I now accept that I can't work for the next three years?"

Daycare Trust believes that employers hold at least part of the answer, not only to helping lone parents into jobs, but by providing the flexible, family-friendly working conditions that will enable those jobs to be sustainable. It hopes that the government will push hard for this.

"If lone parents are to be required to work, access to flexible working has to be a right for everyone," says Emma. "We are calling for all parents, not just those of young children, to be given the right to request flexible working, and we'd like to see more emphasis on providing term-time-only contracts, something which lone parents in particular are calling for."

Daycare Trust also points to research from the US, which showed that the poverty-reduction benefits of welfare-to-work schemes were seriously undermined by the negative effect on adolescents of being left to look after themselves and/or younger siblings. It welcomes the publication of research by Karen Buck MP and 4Children, highlighting the gaps in childcare for older children and the risks of leaving them on their own.

Even where out-of-care provision is available, the cost - between Ł2.50 and Ł3.33 per hour - often puts it out of low-income parents' reach. Daycare Trust believes that after-school, breakfast and holiday clubs should be free for poorer families, possibly passported in the same way as free school meals. And it is calling for all out-of-school provision for 11-14 year olds to be subsidised, aiming ultimately to make it free.

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