Nursery World - Sector issues ‘stark warning’ over 30 hours

Around half of early years provision is under threat of closure over the Government’s plans to extend the free childcare offer to 30 hours, a survey from the Pre-school Learning Alliance suggests.

The early years organisation carried out an online survey about the impact of the 30 hours last month, receiving 1,443 responses.

Forty-nine per cent of providers said there was a risk that the 30-hours could lead to their setting closing, with a further 1 per cent already planning on closing.

The findings suggest that the future of the 30-hour policy is in doubt, with the majority of providers saying that they were unsure about whether they would offer the 30 hours, or that they were not going to offer them.

Less than a third of providers said they were planning to offer the extended entitlement.

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