Mining the manifesto figures

Our approach

To measure the impact of manifesto policies we re-visited our assessment of sector delivery costs captured in April 2019, which forecast a sector deficit of £662 million. By April 2020, costs will rise again, fuelled by statutory pay increases and CPI inflation, amongst other drivers. We have allowed for pay growth of 3.6 per cent and inflation of 1.5 per cent in our updated estimates of delivery costs for PVI nurseries and pre-schools, comparing this with funding rates obtained direct from party sources. The analysis which follows is based on PVI nursery and pre-schools only.

There would be no change to early education and childcare entitlements under a new Conservative administration. No further funding has been announced for this age group, with new investment focusing on wraparound and holiday provision. With a 2019 Spending Review uplift in the region of £0.08 per hour from April 2020, the deficit reported in 2019 will rise significantly. Based on delivery costs for children aged two to four years only and assuming take-up of funded places is in line with 2019/2020 trends, providers would face an estimated funding deficit of £571 million in 2020/2021. The deficit rises to an estimated £824 million when cross-subsidies for younger age groups are factored.