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The Pre-school Learning Alliance has written to all members of Parliament ahead of the Autumn Statement which is due to be released this week on Wednesday 23 November.

 

The Alliance has written on the topic of early years funding and - as part of its  - has asked each MP to write to education secretary Justine Greening to raise concerns about early years funding in their constituencies.

 

The Alliance has also called on the government to implement a regular review of childcare delivery costs, as well as a strategy to ensure that funding is enough to cover costs in the long-run.

 

Neil Leitch, chief executive at the Alliance, said that with less than a year to go until the roll-out of the offer, now is the time for government to ensure that the so-called ‘free childcare’ offer is adequately funded.

 

“The Autumn Statement is the perfect opportunity for the government to respond to the sector’s underfunding concerns – but if the Department for Education continues to claim that the existing funding pot is already enough to cover rising delivery costs until 2020, why would the Treasury bother to increase investment in this area?” Neil said.

 

There have been rumours that increases in childcare subsidies may feature in the Autumn Statement. Of these rumrous, Neil said that the government has previously announced a number of child-focused subsidies, but such approaches are short-term measures that don’t tackle the underlying problem.

 

“If the government really wants to help parents struggling with the cost of childcare, it needs to fund providers properly,” Neil said. “Anything else is like putting a plaster on a broken leg: woefully insufficient.”