Alliance responds to childcare minister’s comments on early years
21st October 2014
The Pre-school Learning Alliance has criticised the government for failing to address the issue of inadequate free early education funding, following comments made by childcare minister Sam Gyimah at an event hosted by think-tank Policy Exchange this morning.
During the speech, the minister called for greater partnership between schools and private, voluntary and independent (PVI) providers and stated that “school-led nurseries will be at the heart of [the government’s] plan for education”. In a subsequent question-and-answer session, when questioned about the sustainability of PVI providers, he stated that providers need to be more creative with how they use existing funding.
Responding to the comments, Alliance chief executive Neil Leitch said:
“If the minister wants to build a sector where maintained and non-maintained providers work together in partnership, he needs to make sure that they are on an even footing - but this is clearly not the case at present.
“We are extremely concerned that the government is still ignoring the fact that the free entitlement offer is severely underfunded. To suggest that providers can address this issue by simply being ‘more creative’ demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the severity of the problem.
“Many early years providers have seen little to no change in funding levels for several years now, and are heavily reliant on fundraising, volunteers and staff working unpaid additional hours to stay afloat. The fact that the vast majority of PVI providers are ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ despite this chronic under-funding is a testament to their hard work and dedication, but it is clear that the current situation is not sustainable in the long term. The government can’t continue to expect more for less.”
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Notes for editors
- The Pre-school Learning Alliance is the largest voluntary sector provider of quality affordable childcare and education in England.
- Through direct provision and its membership of 14,000 nurseries, sessional pre-schools and parent and toddler groups, the Alliance supports over 800,000 children and their families in England. The Alliance also develops and runs family learning programmes, offers information and advice, runs acclaimed training and accreditation programmes and campaigns to influence early years policy and practice.
- For information about the Pre-school Learning Alliance, visit our website: