Nursery World - Coronavirus: Nearly half of childminders could stay closed for up to a year

Fewer than half of childminders that have closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic plan to re-open within the next year, findings from a survey of childminders and childcare providers suggests.

Of those that have closed their setting, 46 per cent said they plan to reopen within three months to a year

The survey by PACEY reveals the devastating long-term impact that Covid-19 could have on the future sustainability of the childcare sector.

Since the closure of educational and childcare settings to all but those children of key workers or vulnerable children, most childcare providers have either closed or seen significant reductions in the number of children they are caring for, which means that their income is has been drastically reduced.

In addition, unlike nurseries, most childminders do not take funded early education places, which means they do not benefit from local authority funding.

The interim findings from the PACEY Covid-19 survey are based on 6,211 responses between 22 and 25 March, nearly all of them from registered childminding settings.

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