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The Early Years Alliance has issued a comment in response to First Steps: Fixing our broken childcare system, by thinktank Onward.

Commenting, Neil Leitch, CEO of the Early Years Alliance, said: 

“While Onward is right to argue that that the current early years system is both underfunded and overly-complex, we are far from convinced that their proposed ‘Childcare Credits’ policy is the solution to the challenges facing both providers and families.  

“We strongly believe that all children, regardless of background, should be able to access a high-quality education and this applies to the early years as much as it does to primary and secondary education. On the face of it, however, the proposed policy put forward by the thinktank would only provide families with a marginal subsidy towards their early years costs meaning that, even with the proposed means-tested ‘Additional Childcare Credit’ those on lower incomes would have much more limited flexibility and choice when it came to accessing care and education for their children.

“While we recognise that such an approach would require less spending from government, early years policy should be developed based on what is best for the child, and not just the government’s balance sheet.  

“Focusing on trying to deliver ‘childcare on the cheap’ is not, and has never been, the answer to the problems our sector is facing. Indeed, it is the very reason we are facing such a crisis.  The fact that Onward’s research showed that relaxing ratios was the only policy explored by the thinktank that had net opposition shows just how much parents value quality, as well as affordability, when it comes to early years provision.  

“The sooner we start looking at early years policy through the lens of what is best for young children, the better for everyone.”