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CEEDA DATA: 2017/18 annual report - Pressure and pride

Management Funding Workforce
The funding gap is huge, poorer parts of the country have less access to childcare, and practitioners are paid just 2p an hour more than cleaners. But pride in the job remains, according to Ceeda’s About Early Years annual report. Hannah Crown reports

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FUNDING

The extent to which Government-set funding rates don’t match the costs of delivering either of the two ‘free’ entitlements is laid bare, Ceeda’s annual report says.

The average cost of early education and childcare for two-year-olds is now £6.90, 32 per cent more than the average funding rate of £5.23 paid to PVIs for these places.

For three- and four-year-olds, average funding rates of £4.34 have increased by just 1.8 per cent in real terms since 2013/14, with average hourly costs 17 per cent higher than funding rates at £5.08.

The report notes, ‘A funding system factored on delivery costs for specific age groups assumes a market where each age group pays a price commensurate with the costs of delivery. This is not … the case with early years provision.’

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