Alliance voices concern over DfE funding clarification
By Shannon Pite
The Alliance has expressed alarm and concern after the Department for Education confirmed further details on the increase in early years funding over the next three years announced at last year's Spending Review.
Back in October, following a meeting with the Alliance and other early years organisations, the newly-appointed children and families Minister Will Quince that, as stated verbally at the meeting, the government would be 鈥渋nvesting additional funding for the early years entitlements worth 拢160m in 2022-23, 拢180m in 2023-24 and 拢170m in 2024-25鈥.
However, the Department for Education has now advised that: 鈥淭he investments in 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25 are all individually in comparison to the baseline for the current year 2021-22.鈥
Cumulative funding increases
The Alliance understands that this means that the yearly funding increases will not be cumulative funding increases (i.e. with each increase funding being added to the previous year鈥檚 funding levels), as the original announcement suggested but that instead, the yearly funding amounts represent how funding levels each year will compare to 2021-22 funding levels. This would mean that in 2023-24, the sector would only see a 拢20m increase in funding compared to 2022-23, while in 2024-25, funding would actually decrease by 拢10m compared to 2023-24.
Outlook "a lot worse" than understood
Commenting, Neil Leitch, CEO of the Early Years Alliance, said: 鈥淲e are incredibly concerned about the implications of this new information from the Department for Education.
"If what seems to be being suggested is accurate, the funding outlook for the sector over the next three years is not only a lot worse than many in the sector understood it to be at the time of the announcement, but potentially worse than the dire situation providers have faced over recent years.
"Early years providers are facing huge increases in wages, national insurance contributions, business rates and countless other costs, alongside the ongoing financial impact of the pandemic. It beggars belief therefore that the government could possibly think that an at-best 17p increase in funding this year, following by a marginal increase the following year and a decrease the year after that, would be anywhere near sufficient to keep the sector sustainable - or that providers would have welcomed this announcement if they had understood this to be the case.
鈥淔or far too long, early years setting have faced a constant struggle to remain in business in the face of stagnant funding and rising costs. Failure to deliver adequate investment into our sector over coming years will almost certainly mean the preventable closure of hundreds, if not thousands, of nurseries, pre-schools and childminders across the country."