Like the approaching snow, there was quite a flurry of early years policy announcements last week after a fairly quiet period.
The removal of the requirement for children's centres in deprived areas to offer full daycare is no great surprise. The high cost of this provision, plus the inability of parents to pay fees that would cover costs, have meant subsidies that have looked increasingly unsustainable as economic conditions worsened.
It is true that in some areas there has just not been much demand for full-time nursery places at children's centres. It could be argued that providing them ate up budgets that could be used to better effect on other services.
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