Spending review: Chancellor announces £66m for early years

The money will be used to increase the hourly rate paid to childcare providers for funded childcare.

Speaking in Parliament to announce the spending review, the Chancellor said, ‘The Government will also increase early years spending by £66m to increase the hourly rate that’s being paid at maintained nursery schools and other childcare providers that deliver on the Government’s free childcare offer.’

The Department for Education confirmed to Nursery World that the funding increase will be applied to both the universal 15 hours and 30-hour childcare for working parents and that more detail will be provided in the next few days.

The Chancellor confirmed a three-year spending plan for education, including for schools, which had already been announced last week.

Mr Javid, said, ‘A good school, inspirational teachers, are the most effective engine for social mobility that there is. That’s why today we are delivering on our pledge to increase school spending by £7.1bn by 2022-23.

‘And we’ll provide over £700m more to support children and young people with special educational needs next year – an 11 per cent increase compared to last year.’

The increase in funding means that every secondary school will be allocated a minimum of £5,000 per pupil by 2020-21, and every primary school £4,000 per pupil by 2021-22.

Further education colleges will also receive 400 million to train and teach more than a million 16 to 19-year olds, he said.

Mr Javid also announced that he would be asking the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to develop proposals for a youth investment fund to pay for more youth centres.

Comments

Early years organisations and unions said that while more funding for early years was  welcome it was inadequate when nurseries had been underfunded for years, and warned that more nurseries would close.

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance said, ‘The early years sector has been holding its breath, waiting desperately for some reprieve from years of government underfunding. While any extra money is welcome, the £66 million announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for early education will not make even the smallest inroad into bridging the £662 million funding gap in the sector.

He added, ’We are nearing a tipping point where parents will no longer be able to bear the increase in fees and optional extras that childcare providers are forced to charge to subsidise the funding shortfall. Many childcare providers have already reached that tipping point and have closed for good. On today’s news, expect more childcare price hikes and more closures.’