A new report from the Greater London Assembly’s Economy Committee recommends the Mayor, Sadiq Khan, encourage the Government to review funding rates in London to ensure they are meeting delivery costs, as well as securing a better deal for employees in the sector.
The Committee stresses that the expansion of the funded hours need to be ‘properly funded and implemented with input from the sector to ensure it has the capacity to address the resulting increase in demand.’
It is one of eight recommendations in the ‘Early years childcare in London’ report to improve early years education within the Capital. The report is based upon discussion with the sector, along with a survey of providers and parents.
The report highlights how the cost of childcare in London is greater than the rest of Britain, which means that parents on the lowest incomes are unlikely to use formal childcare beyond the ‘free’ entitlements.
It also suggests that it is harder for parents in London to find a place within an early years setting compared to the rest of the country.
Other recommendations of the Committee include:
- For the Mayor and Deputy Mayor for Children and Families, working with London Councils, boroughs and the sector, to carry out and publish a constructive London-wide review of the sector in 2023-24 to understand the challenges it faced delivering the funded places and meeting the expected rise in demand.
- For the Mayor to run an awareness campaign, with the aim of recruiting and retaining more workers into the early years sector.
- For the Mayor and Deputy Mayor for Children and Families to investigate the barriers to childminders working from private and social rented accommodation, and the scale of the problem in London.
- For the Government to simplify the system of shared parental leave to increase take-up.
Marina Ahmad AM, chair of the Economy Committee, said, ‘Our city is becoming increasingly unaffordable for families to live in. High childcare costs and other huge expenses such as housing are pushing family budgets to the brink.
‘We know that there are hard-working staff in nurseries across the capital who are doing all they can to care for and educate our young children. But we heard that the sector is struggling, with severe staffing shortages and workers feeling undervalued.
‘While we welcome the Government’s plans to expand the free entitlements for children under the age of three, we are concerned that the childcare sector in London will struggle to cope with the expected rise in demand for places.
‘If we do not take action to address this soon, even more families and even more children will be driven out of London.’
The National Day Nurseries Association and Early Years Alliance welcomed the Committee’s drive to lobby the Government to increase early years funding.
