NEWS

expansion, describing the government aim of increasing staff numbers by 40,000 or 12% by September 2025 as “ambitious” given that the workforce only increased by 5% between 2018 and 2023. The NAO also warns that government efforts to increase staff numbers could result in large numbers of new or less qualified staff entering the workforce, which in turn could “jeopardise the quality of provision”. The report also reveals that:

• the Department for Education (DfE) originally planned to pilot the extended entitlement in some local authorities but cancelled this due to “affordability constraints”.

• the DfE has assessed the likelihood of delivering the places required in September 2024 and 2025 as “problematic”.

• feedback collected by the DfE in March 2024 found that while 82% of local authorities were confident there were in enough places to meet increased demand in April 2024, this falls to just 34% for September 2024 and 9% for September 2025.

Commenting, Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said: “Following the Spring Budget 2023, the government quickly established a programme to extend early years entitlements and sensibly staggered its rollout to reduce delivery risks.

“Despite the crucial role providers will play in delivering these reforms, consultation with the sector was hampered by the restrictions that apply when developing budget proposals. DfE then cancelled early testing plans, which exacerbated the significant uncertainty about the sector’s capacity and financial sustainability.

“The next phase of the reforms will be significantly more challenging, with little contingency and flexibility in its ambitious timetable. The Department must monitor the programme closely and respond promptly to emerging risks.”

New research from charity Pregnant Then Screwed suggests that parents eligible for the extended entitlement for two-year-olds will still struggle with the cost of early education and childcare, despite the government’s funding plans.

According to the research – which ran between March and April 2024, and surveyed 3,396 parents eligible for the new scheme – the median saving from policy will be around £100 to £120 per month, with 17% of eligible parents predicting savings of less than £50 a month.

Of those parents surveyed, 62% have experienced an increase in their early years costs over the past six months, while 64% expect costs to increase over the next six months.

As a result of these continued financial pressures, more than one in five parents (22%) have left – or are considering leaving – their jobs or reducing their hours to cut early education and childcare costs.

Commenting, Neil Leitch, CEO of the Early Years Alliance, said: “Time and time again, the government has reassured parents that the early entitlement expansion will both be easy to access and result in significant savings for parents – but as Pregnant Then Screwed’s research shows, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

“As these findings highlight, this policy is being implemented at the worst possible time for the sector. Even before it was announced, settings across the country were grappling with the effects of sustained underfunding and the worst staffing crisis in years. We at the Alliance remain entirely unconvinced that the funding and support announced since then will even come close to addressing these problems, never mind enabling the sector to deliver enough early years places to meet the likely surge in demand.”

From 1 April, working parents with two-year-olds were eligible for 15 hours of funded provision per week for 38 weeks of the year, an offer that will be extended to eligible families of nine-month-olds from September.

There are three phases of expansion, with the first having just begun and the final one coming in September 2025.

In previous comments, Labour has said the expansion “would not be reduced” if the party takes power, with a general election widely expected to take place in 2024.

The DfE has published a new consultation on proposed changes to Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) safeguarding requirements.

The government says that that the aim of the changes is to strengthen existing requirements and “ensure that all children are kept as safe as possible in early years settings”.

The consultation proposals, which the Department for Education (DfE) says were informed by conversations with a wide range of stakeholders and early years providers, include:

• Amendments to ensure safer recruitment including new requirements to obtain references and requiring safeguarding policies to include procedures to follow to ensure recruitment of suitable individuals.

• The creation of new requirements for following up if a child is absent for a prolonged period of time and amendments to ensure providers hold additional emergency contact details.

• The creation of new requirements to ensure safer eating.

• The creation of a safeguarding training criteria annex and a requirement for safeguarding policies to include details of how safeguarding training is delivered and how practitioners are supported to put it into place

• Amendments to clarify that early years students and trainees are required to have paediatric first aid (PFA) training

• Amendments to ensure children’s privacy when changing nappies and toileting is considered and balanced with safeguarding need

• A small number of other minor changes to the structure and wording of the safeguarding requirements to improve clarity

The consultation is running until Monday 17 June and is available at bit.ly/3UqFbjE.

The government has unveiled statistics showing that 40,000 additional educators and around 85,000 new places are required by September 2025.

From April, eligible working parents of two-year-olds were offered 15 hours of government-funded education and childcare a week for 38 weeks of the year, and parents have been able to apply for an eligibility code to access the funded 15 hours since January.

According to the latest government data, published back in April, 195,355 two-year-olds are currently benefitting from government-funded places, meaning that 79% of eligibility codes issued have now been validated by providers.

Looking ahead, the Department for Education (DfE) has estimated that 15,000 additional places – an increase of 1% – will be needed for September 2024, while around 70,000 additional places will be needed for September 2025, when the offer expands to 30 government-funded hours for children aged nine months old up to when they start school.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said: “We are transforming childcare in this country to deliver the support that hard-working parents deserve.

“As today’s figures show, our plan is working. Thousands of parents are returning to work, and tens of thousands more will be able to do so later this year and next.

“Childcare expansion on this scale is unprecedented in this country, and we will continue providing maximum support to nurseries and all providers to make it a reality.”

Commenting Neil Leitch, CEO of the Early Years Alliance, said: “Let’s be clear, England’s early years sector continues to face severe capacity challenges. So, while these statistics may show the number of places that have been granted, what they don’t reveal is whether families have been able to access all the days and sessions they need: a parent who has been given one day a week at their local setting – but needs five – may technically have a funded place, but not one that meets their needs.

"And, of course, it’s highly likely that those families accessing places will be facing sharp fee increases for any unfunded hours they take up, or additional charges as a direct result of years of sector underfunding.”

Ofsted has published an updated policy for inspection complaints that it says aims to approach providers’ concerns “fairly, thoroughly and efficiently”.

Additional guidance has also been published around the process for pausing an inspection, ensuring it now applies to all childcare, education and social care inspections and regulatory visits.

The new complaints process came into effect on 5 April 2024, applicable to inspections and regulatory activity carried out across all education and care provider types.

The changes follow last year’s consultation on proposals in a bid to make the complaints process as clear and simple to use as possible.

His Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver, said: “All inspections should be carried out professionally and with courtesy, empathy and respect. But should anyone have concerns, we will always want to resolve them as quickly as possible, which is why we have already introduced a helpline for providers to call during their inspection.

"Today’s changes offer a further opportunity to resolve complaints, should it be required. I want to assure providers that we will acknowledge any mistakes made and take steps to put them right. I’m determined that we will learn from complaints to improve the way Ofsted works.

“We introduced a new ‘pausing policy’ in January for state schools, but today are going further to clarify the steps we’ll take when circumstances mean we have to pause the inspection of any school, further education, early years or social care provider. This includes occasions when leaders require support because of concerns about their wellbeing.”

supported the principle of an experienced-based route. However, the government notes that while some providers "would welcome the use of an experience-based route as a flexibility", others "had concerns about negative impacts on the quality of early years provision", and so "the proposals in this consultation document ... set out the Department’s view on how the experience-based route could work in practice, and the parameters that could be put in place to ensure that high-quality education and care is maintained".

Under the proposals, early years providers would be able to make assessment decisions about their staff’s knowledge, skills and experience, and will decide whether they meet the criteria to work in the ratios at level 3.

The consultation also includes proposals on the eligibility criteria for both educators wishing to use the route and settings offering the route, such as educators being required to hold a prior qualification, educators being required to have worked in the early years or a related sector for a minimum amount of time, and providers being rated as 'good' or 'outstanding' in their most recent Ofsted inspection.

The DfE is also looking for feedback on process requirement proposals which sets out several caveats to using the experience-based routes. Included in this is are requirements for educators using the experience-based route to complete a minimum number of hours of relevant work and to hold a suitable level 2 English qualification before they can be considered for use in the ratios at level 3.

This consultation is running until Monday 20 May and is available to access here.

New research from the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) shows that Sure Start had a positive impact on the educational performance of children from low-income and disadvantaged backgrounds.

The research, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, provides the first evidence of how Sure Start affected children’s educational outcomes up to age 16.

Children eligible for free school meals living near a Sure Start centre increased their performance at GCSE by three grades relative to similarly poor children who were not able to access Sure Start.

The research supports growing international evidence demonstrating that well-designed, well-funded intervention in early childhood can lead to long-term educational benefits.

Co-author of the report and IFS research economist Nick Ridpath said: “Sure Start generated substantial benefits for disadvantaged children throughout their education, helping to close the disadvantage gap in attainment. Centres with more resources generated much larger benefits, partly because the extra funding allowed them to reach out to families who were less likely to engage with Sure Start but who stood to benefit a lot.

“The return on investment in integrated early years services that are given the resources to reach those most in need can be very large.”