The post you are reporting:
The report is actually a review of literature and subsequent analysis, and further qualifies itself on the collation and analysis of data and the lack of transferable measures of comparison in different childcare settings. It looks at "informal" care (famly members, unregistered child-minders, babysitters, au pairs) compared with "formal" care, (eg nurseries) and comes up with mixed results. They depend on the criteria used for analysis (which are mainly from a particular subset of values, such as vocabulary, social-emotional responses, "school-readiness", educational development, obesity). Of note is that input from non-residential parents and parental care by shifts is not included, and that care by grandparents isn't disaggregated; in practice it means that primary care is mainly given by the grandmother.
Results are also, as would be expected, cross-cut by sex and age of the child, socio-economic group of the family, and educational level of the mother, and there are clear instances where care by formal methods is beneficial. Interestingly, also in the report, after a preamble, is this conclusion by the authors "... we suggest that there is little evidence to suggest that children are substantially advantaged or disadvantaged by being looked after by their grandparents or other informal childcarers".
It's an interesting report, but the results aren't necessarily as clear-cut as the headlines would suggest. Both newspaper articles I've seen on this do reflect this in summary, thought can't, of course, do so in detail. As well, the report highlights (again, as one would expect!) many areas for further research.
One aside consideration of interest is the question of funding for informal childcare, and whether there should be government provision for it beyond the current tax credits available - and whether the changes in state pension age, especially for women, will have an affect (and especially as many women, in particular, also care for elderly relatives).
