Nursery World - Daycare Trust calls for early education and childcare spending to double

Spending on childcare must more than double from 4.4bn to 9.4bn in order to deliver high quality early childhood education and care, according to a new report by the Daycare Trust.

The findings suggest that spending on childcare must increase to approximately one per cent of the country's GDP, to improve staff qualifications, increase wages and make childcare more affordable for parents.

The Daycare Trust report, Quality Costs: Paying for Early Childhood Education and Care, in conjunction with the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Social Market Foundation, also calls for the free entitlement for three- and four-year-olds to be increased to 20 hours per week.

Staff qualifications should rise, the report recommends, with half of staff caring for children aged two and over to be graduates and the rest Level 3 qualified.

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