Speaking at the Education Select Committee meeting today (22 April), she said, ‘There has never been a change in guidance. The treasury guidance makes it enormously clear [that organisations receiving public funding to pay staff shouldn’t also be able to use furlough for them]. That is what we added to our guidance as extra clarification. I wish I could have got that clarification out faster.’
Ms Ford said that her priorities were sufficient childcare for keyworkers; making sure vulnerable children were safe; and ‘doing everything we can for the longer-term sustainability of the sector’.
‘That is why I fought for the commitment that government would continue to fund the free entitlement, even if schools [sic] closed, even if children were not attending.
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