Mrs Hodge announced that the first 29 Early Years Development and Childcare Partnership plans in England for the year 2001/2002 year had been approved by the Government, while the other 121 partnership plans are currently being assessed by the DfEE.
Mrs Hodge said, 'Local partnerships have been tremendously successful in expanding high-quality nursery and childcare places. Targets for new childcare places are being beaten by a third, virtually meeting the national target of 128,000 new places in just nine months. This means that between April 1997 and December 2000, new childcare places for more than 625,000 children have been created.'
The Government hopes to have created 170,000 places to help a further 310,000 children aged nought to 14 by next March. Mrs Hodge described this target as 'ambitious but achievable' and said the Government aimed to create places for 1.4m children by March 2004.
She added, 'This shows we were right to channel through the partnerships much of our investment in childcare - 561m of DfEE funding between 2001/2004 and 155m from the New Opportunities Fund. Investment in partnerships has been 46.4m in 1998/1999, 58.4m in 1999/2000 and 66m in 2000/2001.'
