Labour Party reportedly mulling means-tested early years offer
By Shannon Pite
The Labour Party is considering replacing the current 'free childcare' model with a means-tested approach to early years provision, according to reports.
The Guardian claims that the party is mulling giving greater support to those on lower-incomes, while tapering it off for wealthier families, with Labour officials are looking at whether the current £100,000 limit on eligibility for the early entitlement offers could be adjusted so that some families below that threshold do not get the full entitlement on order to provide more support for poorer families.
A Labour spokesperson is reported as saying: “An expansion of childcare to all children is not Labour’s policy."
Commenting on the reports, Alliance CEO Neil Leitch said:
"It’s clear that the current approach of making grand promises of more and more free childcare without fully considering the funding needed to make them viable – something that parties from across the political spectrum have been guilty of – simply isn’t working.
"Instead, we’ve been left with a broken system where parents are faced with soaring prices, settings are struggling to keep their doors open and early years professionals are leaving in their droves.
"We fully support the principal of universal early years provision but have also always argued that if this is not possible, investment should be targeted at the families most in need of support, whose children research has shown will benefit the most from access to a high-quality early education.
"Of course, the devil is, as always, in the detail. How exactly would means-testing work in practice? What steps would be taken to prevent this creating an additional workload burden on providers? And at what level would any subsidised hours be funded?
"Ultimately, whoever is in government after the next election, what the early years needs is a clear and comprehensive strategy, underpinned by adequate investment and with the needs of the child at its centre. The sector is unlikely to survive anything less."