Alliance research shows families will struggle to access funded places at early years settings
by Jess Gibson
Families with children under three may be unable to access government-funded places at early years settings when the government extends the 30-hours offer, an Early Years Alliance survey has found.
Alliance research on the early entitlement expansion highlights that limited provider capacity may leave families unable to access early education support in their local area.鈥
The results of two surveys 鈥 one for providers and another for families 鈥 show鈥痶hat a high proportion of early years settings will be unable to provide the places needed to match increased demand, with many providers citing a lack of space or sufficient staff as key reasons.
Carried out online between 10 and 21 July 2023, the Alliance鈥檚 findings reflect a sector capacity at odds with families鈥 expectations of the expanded early entitlement offer. While 89% of eligible families expect to make use of the expanded support, just 61% are optimistic that availability will match their needs:
-
42% of all early years providers surveyed already have a full waiting list for places.
-
60% of providers planning to offer funded two-year-old places under the new offer and who anticipate a rise in demand are not planning to increase the number of places offered, with 72% stating the same for the extended one-year-old offer.
-
59% of providers feel the sector has not been given enough time to fully prepare for the increased demand the early entitlement expansion.
The Alliance survey also reveals that a large number of providers currently delivering non-funded places for one- and two-year-olds planning to charge privately for some or all places under the new expansion.
Commenting, Early Years Alliance CEO Neil Leitch said:
鈥淎s our survey clearly demonstrates, once again, the government has blindly made a promise to families that many providers simply will not be able to deliver on.鈥
鈥淎 combination of poor funding, a lack of capacity and insufficient time to prepare means that many pre-schools, nurseries, and childminders may 鈥 quite understandably 鈥 choose to limit the number of funded places available under the expanded offer, or in some cases, opt out entirely. As a result, many of the parents and carers who are pinning their hopes on benefitting from the new offers when they roll out next year are likely to be left sorely disappointed.鈥
鈥淚f the government had actually engaged with the sector before ploughing ahead these plans, it would have known that there was no way that we would be able to provide the places that have been promised to families on anywhere near the scale proposed in the time given. Instead, it once again chose to announce first and ask questions later, leaving us with a policy that, given the state of the sector at the moment, is simply unworkable.鈥
鈥淲ith settings closing at record levels and educators leaving in their droves, the early years is at crisis point. As such, before we can even consider expanding the early entitlement offers, we need to fix the huge problems that years of underfunding has created. We therefore urge the government to work with the sector to ensure that the necessary infrastructure is in place to support providers to deliver the places that families need. Otherwise, this policy risks becoming a complete and utter waste of both time and money.鈥濃