�㽶��Ƶapp

by Jess Gibson

A new published today concludes that the government has “more work to do” to ensure all children, families and providers benefit from available support, says the Education Committee. 

A cross-party inquiry, Support for childcare and the early years, was launched in 2022. It had a wide remit of assessing ongoing support, entitlements, and provisions, as well as the impact of COVID-19 on child development and proposed changes to the sector.  

The findings highlight the precarious position of many early years settings, with the committee seeing evidence of a system “straining to provide” adequate care and education due to a range of issues, including mass closures, an ongoing recruitment and retention challenge, and a significant drop in childminder numbers.  

The report further acknowledged that, despite the £204m earmarked by the government for the early years sector, the amount pledged fails to address years of chronic underfunding and the difficulties posed by the current cost-of-living crisis.  

In addition to those conclusions, the Education Committee outlined a series of suggestions for the government to consider moving forward, one of which was to refer to the extended early years entitlements as ‘funded’ or ‘subsidised’ to avoid misleading parents.  

A range of other key suggestions were also in the report: 

• increase the early years entitlement subsidy for providers 

• streamline the system for proposed 30-hours funding entitlement 

• abolish business rates for nurseries 

• mandatory SEND training for all early years’ staff 

Other findings – which can be found – were wide ranging, including closely monitoring changes to staff:child ratios and the funding of family hubs across the country.  

Commenting on the inquiry, Neil Leitch, CEO of the Early Years Alliance, said: 

"As the Education Committee states, the education and care a child receives during their first five years is absolutely crucial, yet the infrastructure, funding and support simply isn’t there to both enable providers to easily deliver this and families to benefit from it.    

"We, therefore, welcome the inquiry’s focus on the array of critical challenges facing the sector. Not only have years of severe underfunding plagued the sector, but the worst staffing crisis in decades has created a perfect storm that must be addressed if the sector has any chance of survival in the coming years.   

"If that wasn’t bad enough, it’s likely that the upcoming sector expansion will be dangerously underfunded and will place unrealistic expectations on providers already on the brink. But, if the government had properly listened to our countless calls for sector support and funding, they would have known this.    

"It’s clear that remedying the challenges the sector is facing cannot be achieved overnight. Yet, for the Committee’s findings to truly have a lasting impact, we hope against hope that it finally wakes the government up to the reality of the situation facing families and providers, and prompts urgent, effective action. Frankly, too much is at stake to do any less.”