Nursery World - Who's better off?

At first sight the pay survey for the early years workforce (Nursery World, 30 September) looks like good news. Pay has risen by a third in five years, hooray! Then you look closer at the statistics and see that the main reasons are because the minimum wage has been introduced, and because staff in Sure Start projects and children's centres are getting a lot more than their colleagues in private sector nurseries, thanks to being subsidised by the taxpayer. At the same time we are always hearing about profits going up for the big nursery chains, whose executives are always going on about their plans for expanding, like big fish eating up smaller fish.

At the same time we are always hearing about profits going up for the big nursery chains, whose executives are always going on about their plans for expanding, like big fish eating up smaller fish.

So why aren't the private nurseries' staff enjoying the benefits of all this growth? Or why doesn't the Government intervene to make sure that all childcarers can earn a wage they can live on - since clearly it's only after Government involvement that pay in the early years sector has gone up at all?

Linda Clarke, Birmingham

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