Today, Early Education, the NAHT, NEU and Unison have jointly written an open letter calling on the government to address the shortfall in early years funding.
The letter asks the Secretary of State for Education and the Chancellor to prioritise raising the funding for the early education entitlements:
Before any expansion of the number of funded hours or age groups can take place, the current entitlements need to be adequately funded to stabilise the sector, and remove the need for cross-subsidy and top-up charges which are currently driving the high level of fees to parents.
The letter highlights that schools and settings’ budgets are being severely hit, by a combination of increased staff costs, funded entitlement rates not keeping pace with inflation, increased heating and fuel costs, increased demand for support for children with SEND coupled with decreased funding, staff cover costs and inflation more generally. Maintained settings are struggling to fund pay increases to teachers’ pay and local authority payscales, and having to cut staffing where funding falls short, while PVI settings are struggling with the increases to the National Minimum Wage, and as a result, face greater recruitment and retention issues. In both cases, there is a clear need for entitlement rates to reflect pay increases in the sector.
The letter draws on the findings of a recent survey of members which also found that schools and settings in areas of high deprivation are being particularly hard hit by the below-inflationary increases in funding due to the additional costs of meeting higher levels of need, and the lack of opportunities to cross-subsidise from parent-paid fees.
Other key findings that from our survey are:
Read the full letter:
The National Audit Office’s new report, Improving educational outcomes for disadvantaged children, finds that in 2023-24, DfE allocated an estimated £9.2 billion to specifically focus
The letter below sets out our key asks for the next government.
On 10 June, Labour announced their plans for “over three thousand new nursery classes across England to open up access to childcare hours for families”,
The Conservative Manifesto has promised to extend Family Hubs to all local authorities. This would both extend funding for the 75 local authorities where they
The Lib Dems have published their manifesto, including commitments to incorporate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into UK law and to
Today, Friday 17 May, the Early Education and Childcare Coalition (EECC) has launched its new manifesto, with proposals to rescue and reform England’s early education
A report published by the National Audit Office (NAO) today finds that the timetable for the roll-out of the new funded early education and childcare
In response to recent queries about why the latest DfE guidance on providing the early education and childcare entitlements has removed references to additional charges
DfE have issued an update to address the issue of parents wishing to claim their codes for the new entitlements who cannot do so because
DfE has today launched a consultation on the new funding rates which will apply for 2-year-olds and under 2s when the new entitlements are introduced
The Department for Education has today announced that the extra £204m for early years announced in the budget will be allocated to local authorities as
DfE has issued slightly more detail about the planned uplift in the hourly rates for the current and new entitlements, following the announcements in the
In today’s budget the Chancellor has confirmed several new measures on early education and childcare: Our analysis The decision to relax the ratios for 2-year-olds
Today, teachers from the National Education Union are striking, including many working in nursery and reception classes. In the last week, the Department for Education
The government’s latest changes to the early years funding formulae bring two key changes which we pointed out in our response to the consultation would
DfE have today announced the early years funding settlement for 2023-24, which leaves the early years sector struggling on below inflationary increases. While an additional
In his Autumn Statement today the Chancellor failed to offer any financial help to an early years sector which is already struggling to stay afloat.
Early Education welcomes the announcement by Bridget Philipson MP, the Shadow Education Secretary, that Labour intends for an expansion of the maintained nursery sector to
The tenth early years minister in ten years, Kelly Tolhurst, is now in post. It’s good news that early years is part of a Minister
We urge members to respond to the two DfE consultations on funding and ratios which close on 16 September. For information, you can view the
Early Education
2 Victoria Square
St Albans
AL1 3TF
T: 01727 884925
E: office@early-education.org.uk
