Sarah Ronan, Director of the Early Education and Childcare Coalition

It feels like years, not months, since the Chancellor used the Spring Budget to announce the biggest expansion of childcare support in history. In that time we’ve seen a flurry of press stories and Government announcements, and with it a growing concern about how such a largescale expansion could be delivered given the current fragility of the sector.

What we haven’t yet seen in all of that is any mention of a new workforce strategy for early years, one that recognises the seismic shift in delivery and funding that this expansion will bring.

We know that early years professionals are not just key to increasing availability for parents but a well-trained and well-looked after workforce drives quality experiences for children. Without a strategy and investment in that workforce we risk both the success of the new expansion and outcomes for our youngest.

That’s why the Early Education and Childcare Coalition in partnership with the University of Leeds carried out extensive research to understand the role of the early years workforce in delivering the expanded entitlement.

The challenges in recruiting and retaining staff are well documented but that didn’t make our findings any less shocking. Over a third (38%) of childminders and over half (57%) of nursery staff told us they were considering leaving the sector entirely in the next 12 months just as the expansion is set to be rolled out.

Everything we heard in our research points to this being far more of a retention crisis than a recruitment one, yet Government has taken steps only to address the latter. Changes to the EYFS framework to make it easier to recruit and a new years recruitment campaign don’t address the reasons why staff are leaving. In fact, many would argue that changes to the EYFS risk deprofessionalising the sector at a time when we should be making it a more attractive proposition.

Any chief executive of any organisation will tell you that replacing experienced staff costs time and money – two things this sector doesn’t have right now. Moreover, this approach risks jeopardising the Government’s expansion of so-called ‘free childcare’.

While most childminders (77%) said they would offer the new entitlement to one- and two-year-olds, they said they would not be able to increase the overall number of hours they offered. The situation was even more stark in group settings where just 17% of nursery managers said they would be able to offer the new entitlement as a result of the staffing challenges they faced.

With this approach to delivering the expansion, is it little wonder that a recent poll by YouGov on behalf of the Coalition found that just 7% of the public trust the Conservative party to reduce the cost of childcare while just 9% trust them to improve quality? While this is perhaps to be expected of any political party in office for 13 years, it is also true that chronic underfunding has, in turn, undermined the Government’s reputation on early education and care.

It has sought to remedy some of that in recent weeks with the launch of the childminder grant – again targeting recruitment not retention – and an increase in funding to cover the rise in national minimum wage. That increase is unlikely to be enough to cover the rise in NMW and it still keep keeps the three and four-year-old rate critically low creating a worrying basis for expanding the current offer.

If the Government is serious about keeping its Spring Budget promise to parents, it must prioritise decent pay, conditions and training for all early years staff and provide the funding that enables that. Investment in the early years workforce is an investment in our children and our economy; it is the most important building block of a well-functioning early years system. If this Government, or indeed any political party is to success in its aims of reforming childcare, it must start there.

About the author

Sarah is Director of the Early Education and Childcare Coalition. She was previously the Early Education and Childcare Lead and Head of Communications and Public Affairs at the Women’s Budget Group. Sarah has worked in campaigns for a range of organisations including trade unions and early years providers and previously led Pregnant Then Screwed’s award-winning pandemic response. 

About the Early Education and Childcare Coalition

The Early Education and Childcare Coalition unites the voices of all those with a stake in the future of early education and care – children, parents, providers, the early education workforce, and the wider business community. It was developed in response to the growing pressures facing the sector and families. Continued underfunding, rising costs, and workforce pressures created a growing need for collaboration among all those impacted by the crisis in early education and childcare.

The Coalition is hosted by the Women’s Budget Group, the UK’s leading feminist economics think tank, and funded by the Kiawah Trust, a charitable foundation that supports initiatives to tackle educational and gender inequality.